The Ones You Least Expect
by Merwood
Summary: CONNECTED TO: "Broken Time" SUMMARY: Sometimes one person really can make a difference, sometimes it's the ones you least expect.  With the change in the Timeline Suzie has somehow survived.  What does this mean for the team? Ianto centric, Janto pairig.
1. An End Is Where We Start From

**The Ones You Least Expect**

Summary: Sometimes one person really can make a difference, sometimes it's the ones you least expect.

Characters: Ianto Jones(Centric), Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Owen Harper, Suzie Costello, Toshiko Sato (Doctor Who Crossover will occur later)

Pairings: Ianto/Jack main focus, will be others but no spoilers and expect a bumpy road for them.

Rating: M

Warnings: Explicit Violence, Swearing, Sexual Situations (Both M/M and F/M)

Disclaimer: All characters are property of bbc Wales and RTD. Which is lucky for you else the entire Torchwood plot would focus on Ianto and Jack being chained to my bed.

Author Notes: This will be a long story. It follows a timeline or alternate universe created during the events of another story I wrote called "Broken Time." Its recommend you read that one first. The story will work its way from Ianto's return from (see Broken Time) and work its way through the Torchwood cannon but things will be different.

Last note, I created a slightly different timeline then the shows, basically more time between episodes, its posted on my profile, not required to read, just their for any hardcore TW/DW fans that may get confused.

AN: For anyone enjoying this story, sorry I have trouble focusing on one project at a time, but don't worry I haven't abandoned this or my other projects. But since I now have five+ projects (several TW stories I'm writing not sure if I'll post or not) in the works I'll try and focus on the more popular ones first. So if you're liking a certain story make sure to review or put on alert and I'll try focusing on the more popular ones first.

AN2: This isn't the original Prologue, chapter 1 was. I felt adding this will hopefully get people excited for things to come. I don't like giving away spoilers but please don't assume this is the definite ending.

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><p><strong>Prologue - An End Is Where We Start From<strong>

The Year 3563

Ianto Jones lay in his bed patiently awaiting his partners return. He knew his time was soon, he had lived a good life, a life he was never meant to have. At the stalwart age of 106 years old he lived a far longer life than most 21st century beings. It was a good life, a life with the man he loved, Jack Harkness.

They lived in a small village with many friendly faces and together had raised seven beautiful children, all of which they had adopted. All of them had already come to say their farewells and Ianto couldn't hold back the tears knowing he would never get to see his children ever again, their next visit would be at his funeral.

It was his time, he knew. He'd never change anything about his life, it was a far greater life than he could have hoped for, but he had regrets. Dying before your prime of your life and being forced to let go of all your friends and family was painful to say the least, but he wouldn't change it.

Ianto was pulled from his thoughts with the gentle squeaking of the bedroom door opening. Without looking up he smiled, a wide grin from ear to ear. He didn't look up, he didn't have too. Ianto would know that shy timid entrance anywhere, it definitely wasn't the invasive one the arrogant Time Lord would make, or the overly dramatised one of his lover. God, Jack did love to make a scene of everything.

No it definitely wasn't either of the two usual visitors. This timid approach, leaving the door slightly ajar as he peaked his head through carefully gauging that he wouldn't be intruding, always taking the consideration of others. It was the only other man Ianto had ever loved, a man Ianto was sure had died a very long time ago.

"My Doctor," Ianto whispered in a weak yet joyful tone.

The man walked in hesitantly approaching the bed, his insecurities obvious to the aged man.

"How?" the man stuttered as he carefully sat beside Ianto on the bed, his eyes meeting the mans for the first time in decades, "how did you know it was me? And not my better half?"

"Better half?" Ianto asked remembering the mans insecurities when it came to comparing himself to, for lack of a better word, twin. "Oh Doctor, to me you always were the better half."

Ianto heart warmed seeing that familiar smile grace his long lost lovers face.

"How do you always know its me? You always were the only one who could tell when we stood side by side."

"Well nowadays its simple, your arrogant git of a twin went and got himself regenerated again. Gots a massive arse chin now, he does," Ianto responded his smile widening to match his companion's. "Its a lot of things, like your mannerisms. His arrogance your modesty," Ianto didn't want to use the words insecurities, he was the only man Ianto had ever met to be insecure about being insecure. He continued, "but mostly its your eyes."

"My eyes," the doctor repeated silently more to himself.

"Yes, your eyes. His look tired, like he's holding the weight of the world on his shoulders. Yours are very human, filled with compassion and love," Ianto managed to get out before breaking out into a gut wrenching coughing fit.

The Doctor moved quickly to Ianto's side and helped him sit up while handing Ianto a handkerchief to cough into. The fit lasted several minutes before Ianto was able to calm down. He pulled the handkerchief away from his month and both noted the blood stains now splattered on the cloth.

"Won't be long now," Ianto whispered as the Doctor helped him lay back down. "Lay with me for awhile," Ianto asked as he lifted his arm in a welcoming gesture.

"I can't stay long much longer," the Doctor warned Ianto as he gently snuggled into Ianto's side, wrapping his arm as tightly around Ianto's waist as he dared.

"Timey-wimey thing?" Ianto asked, more of a statement than a question. In his years of knowing Jack and the Doctor he'd had to sit through the Time Lords rants several times.

"Yeah, something like that."

The two remained silent for awhile, taking comfort in the embrace neither imagined they'd ever get experience again.

"Did you have a good life?" the Doctor asked unsure the answer he wanted to hear. Part of him praying to Rasssilon that Ianto had been happy and a more selfish part wanting to hear not without him in his life.

"Yeah, I had a bloody fantastic life," Ianto reflected back on these past decades with Jack raising their kids and enjoying their life danger free. "But I have regrets, losing you the biggest of them."

"I would've come to you sooner if I could," the Doctor replied wiping the tears that escaped.

"I know, time is a bitch," Ianto added pleased with himself when he felt his companion shake gently beside him with laughter. He waited a moment allowing the more cheerful moment to linger before he continued, "I miss them," Ianto said as he started to cry. "God, I miss them. Gwen, Owen, Tosh and Suzie. She was my best friend and helped me get through so much."

Ianto's form began to convulse beside the Doctor, shaking bitterly from the large sobs that he could no longer control. The Doctor pulled his once be lover in tightly trying desperately to give the elderly man comfort.

"Fuck time," Ianto spat. "As soon as that arrogant twat shows up I'm hijacking his TARDIS and going back. Tell everyone I was okay that I lived a good life. Go back and stop you from going into that bloody building."

The Doctor ignored the outburst and simply continued to hold Ianto tightly until he got a grasp of himself again. It was so hard not to give into the mans wishes and find away to bring him back to the 21st century. How much the Doctor loved him and wished nothing more than to take away his regrets, but he couldn't. This moment needed to happen, it was a pivotal time in his own life and that of Jack's and the Time Lords. It just hurt so much knowing he'd never get to hold Ianto in his arms again.

"Its time," the Doctor whispered quietly, using every fibre of strength and willpower he possessed to pull himself away from his dying lover. "I have to go now, he'll be back soon."

"I understand," Ianto murmured wishing his body still had the strength to walk his Doctor to the door.

The Doctor leaned in and placed a soft kiss on Ianto's lips, their last kiss, before pulling away to make his way to the door. "I love you, Ianto Jones." His final words as he made his way through the door, just barely hearing Ianto's parting words.

"I love you too, my Doctor."

With those parting words Ianto watched one of the only two men he'd ever loved disappear. He lay their for a moment feeling a weight being lifted from his heart. His Doctor was alive, part of him always felt it, they never did find any traces of a body. At least he could die knowing that both the men he loved would be alive and well.

Moments later the door once again was thrown open with gusto, colliding loudly with the wall. Jack was back with his medicine. Why Jack insisted on Ianto continuing with his treatment he didn't understand, he was dying of old age after all and for that there was no cure.

"Honey, I'm home!" Jack bellowed into the room as he jumped carelessly onto the bed causing Ianto to rock with the force.

That was his Jack, a sheer force of life with the power of a hurricane blowing through and pray you not get caught in its path cause it will knock you off your feet. Or in Ianto's case into the clouds and never let you down.

"What happened?" Jack asked noticing the sombre reflective look Ianto was in.

"Timey-wimey," Ianto replied enjoying the scowl that crossed Jack's face at the code word for I cant tell you. It was rare that he got to use it, normally he was on the receiving end.

"Gods, you must hate us whenever we say that to you," Jack said as he carefully pulled Ianto up onto his lap holding him gently in his firm embrace.

Ianto didn't respond, he suddenly felt drained. He didn't have the energy so instead he just lay there in Jack's warm embrace enjoying the moment. Listening as Jack rambled on about the passing's and goings of the villagers, what their Time Lord friend was up too, how the coral now took up the entire room they kept it in, and anything that just happened to pop into Jack's mind. Slowly letting the darkness take him he drifted off into an endless sleep in the arms of his lover.

Jack had felt it, the moment when Ianto's heart stopped beating, but he couldn't bring himself to stop talking. For hours he clutched Ianto tightly to his chest ignoring the tears that flowed freely. Trying desperately not to allow thoughts of living for all eternity without this beautiful man in his life.

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><p>Please let me know what you think about the new prologue<p> 


	2. Into the Fire

**Chapter 1 - Into the Fire**

Present - July 2005

Ianto wasn't sure what was happening, his vision blurred and the room felt as though it were spinning around him. The constant throbbing of his head making him feel nauseous, if he didn't sit down the contents of his stomach would surely come up. He couldn't help thinking whatever that god awful smell he was smelling wasn't helping his situation any. And those sounds raging in the background were definitely not helping his headache any. He really needed to sit, now if only the room would remain still long enough for him to find a seat.

A particularly strong dizzy spell hit and he soon found himself off balance and crashing his arse landing on something lumpy and hard which would likely leave a bruise. Definitely not the floor. He reached for whatever he fell on and pulled it out from under him, swinging the black messenger bag around onto his lap. Now realizing it was strapped around his neck. '_Wonder where this came from,_' he thought as he held onto the bag. He wanted to check inside to see if whatever he landed on was damaged but his head still to fogged to focus enough.

He decided to ignore the bag for now and leaned back resting his palms on the tile below. It was a hard surface but it was cool and felt nice on his palms. He wanted nothing more than to just turn over and lie down feeling the cool tile pressed against his face, but as he was clearly still at work he thought best if he resist that urge.

He looked around the room, employee lounge on his floor, the researchers floor. He's never seen the room quiet so barren before, over 800 employees, the lounges always held at least one other soul. Which reminded him, Lisa and her friends only moments ago, here in this room, trying to embarrass him. Lisa was there holding him, kissing him. Where did they go, how did he not see them leave?

He allowed his mind wonder, Lisa always had had too many friends, always took him awhile to place names with their faces. They were good friends though, always protecting Lisa, threatening to castrate him if he broke her heart. As if he ever could. She was his life. His connection to happiness. But where is she?

The sounds were becoming clearer, sounds of shouting, no screaming. Screams sounding to be a mixture of pain and fear in equal measure. The screams shrieking throughout the building echoing in his eardrums. Other sounds were there too, harder to hear, drowned out a little by the screams. War cries of some sort, but that didn't make sense. Inhuman voices shouting singular words, DELETE and EXTERMINATE. He could hear the sounds of heavy footsteps marching in perfect synchronization down the halls. Footsteps getting closer by the second.

And then there were those smells, those putrid god awful smells. What he would give to forget them. Smoke, ash and the metallic tang of iron given off by blood. If only that were the worst of them, the strongest smell being that of burnt flesh. Such a strong pungent odour.

How could things change so quickly, literally one second Lisa was in his arms kissing him, the next she's gone and chaos has been unleashed all around him. He checked the clock on the wall, half past three, five hours off from his watch. He couldn't understand how that happened, he was anal about time, always the first thing he did every morning was to ensure his watch was set correctly. He was sure it was a form of OCD but he couldn't help it, he hated being late.

"Oh God, Lisa!" Ianto screamed out into the empty room, having finally recovered from his disorientation. He sprinted up off the ground and ran out the room into the hall all care for his own safety forgotten, Lisa is somewhere in this chaos and that is all he could think of.

"Do you surrender?" The chorus of emotionless robotic voices asked as Ianto ran straight into a group of about a dozen or so silver humanoid shaped creatures.

Surrounded by these steel creatures with nothing more than a black messenger bag, that he didn't know where it had come from, his suit and his bare fists. There was little choice.

"I do," he whispered, raising his hands above his head, sounding more than a little defeated. He wouldn't be able to find Lisa, had to pray she somehow made it out.

The group of metal men forced him down several hallways leading him closer to the screams. He was in a daze, he knew the building well enough, he'd worked there for two years now. But this wasn't his Carnary Wharf, not any longer, its mutated far beyond recognition. Twice he had almost fallen from slipping on still wet blood coating the floor on his way. The clean white walls that filled the building were stained red with blood and singed black with ash and laser burns.

They shoved Ianto forcefully through the misty white plastic tarps hanging from the ceiling into a room that would ingrain itself into his memory for the rest of his life. The room was a large open area with rows of silver metal beds running all around the walls. Around thirty beds in all, though beds was too nice a word, metal autopsy table was more accurate. Each table equipped with steel restraints for locking the occupant in place and each table had a metal ring circling it with numerous devices connected. And in each bed there was a person strapped into it.

About fifteen people were still lucky enough to have survived, though he felt the word was rather inaccurate as they were stuck waiting for their turn, watching those before suffer. The floor had so much blood spreading across it he could hardly see the tile beneath. In one corner lay the gruesome remains of those unfortunate enough to undergo the process beforehand. So many bodies unceremoniously piled up onto each other that it would be impossible to guess how many were there. Bodies stripped of their cloths and metal burnt, no fused directly onto their flesh. It would have been an incredibly slow and painful death.

Time seemed to slow to a halt as Ianto stood there awaiting his turn, far to scared to look up to see the looks of agony and fear of those misfortunate enough to be taken before him. He couldn't help but berate his cowardice, he knew staying put would lead to a slow painful death, but he was to scared to chance running for it. So he remained still, his eyes were so transfixed on the ground that he never realized everyone else had been taken, and his turn would be next. He adamantly refused to look up until he heard it. It was a cry of pain, one which he recognized. It was a cry from Lisa.

"Lisa!" Ianto shouted into the room as he ran towards the pain filled voice.

"DELETE!" A chorus of metallic cries called out as he ran out into the room, clearly now being taken as a threat by the metal creatures.

Trapped in his singular train of thought of saving Lisa, Ianto would never realize just how close he came to dying at that moment. It was then when all the hostile creatures that had had their targets set on deleting him that a strong force pulled them all up off of their feet and into the air. A force ripping them through windows and out doorways ricocheting off the walls and out of the building at great speed. One slamming down hard into Ianto's left shoulder as it flew past causing him to fly into the air several feet before connecting abruptly with the floor.

Ianto ignored the pain in his shoulder and the trickling of blood he could feel dripping down as he slowly forced himself to his feet. He remained stationary for a moment while he got his bearings. His eyes focused and only a few feet in front of him lay the object of his desire, Lisa Hallett.

Lisa lay motionless on the Cyber-Conversion Unit, blood freely flowing from her open wounds, metal fused over the bulk of her form. Tears falling from her eyes as she tried to ignore the pain she was in. What little remained of her flesh was either coated in blood or burn marks in equal measure. If she didn't receive medical aid soon she would die.

"Ianto? Is that you?" Lisa's weak voice cried out. The voice that pulled him from his daze and helped drive him forwards.

"Oh God, Lisa!" Ianto managed to choke out as he reached her bedside, taking her hand into his. He placed his other gently on her shoulder, which he retracted quickly as she cried out in pain at the touch. "I'm going to get you out of here, I promise."

"I won't make it," Lisa whispered weakly.

"You will! I can't lose you," he cried no longer able to hold back the tears.

"To much pain, you'll need to find something to manage it," Lisa suggested starting to get her emotions under control. "And you'll need something to take the Conversion Unit, I can't survive without it."

Ianto nodded dumbly, thinking was to hard right now, direction and instruction was much easier for him to manage.

"We're in storage Bay 5 right now, there should be a medical storage unit just opposite Bay 4," Lisa began instructing Ianto on what needed to be done. He was just nodding not even considering how Lisa learned the layout of the storage bays, which medical supplies he'll need to get and where to locate a lift for the unit. All things a researcher wouldn't need to know, he just listened and then set out to gather the required items.

On his way to the medical supply closet Ianto saw a scrawny man dressed in a dark brown pin striped suit and white trainers. The man quickly ran down the hall into Bay 4. He called out to the man begging for help, noticing the slight flinch as he did so. The man had heard but kept on running. Ianto entered the storage bay in time to catch a whirring sound mixed in with some sort of grinding noise. A sound he had never heard before but would never forget. Especially when it faded along with the blue police box that was in front of him. It was the Doctor. Had he unleashed this hell upon them? Must have been, he is Torchwoods number one enemy.

Either way it didn't matter. Lisa needed him and he clearly was on his own. He doubled back to the medical supply closet and filled his bag with whatever pain killers he could get his hands on, Lisa would surely need them for awhile to come.

Ianto arrived back to Lisa's bay with the needed supplies and driving the lift required to make their escape from the hell they were currently entrapped within. Lisa had somehow managed to talk him through everything from setting up the IV to how to disconnect the Conversion Unit and the required tech they'd need to keep it going. He then drove them out of the large storage room and down the halls into the loading area. They drove out into the joining car pack, where he quickly snatched a large enough van to transport Lisa out.

Finally they were safe. As safe as they could be at least. Lisa would be in for a long trip to recover, but Ianto was determined to be with her every step of the way. They would be safe for now, Lisa had told him of an abandoned warehouse Torchwood One owned but haven't used in years. It would be suitable place for them to recover and plan what to do next. And it didn't matter how Lisa knew about the warehouse.

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><p>Ianto sat quietly on the camping cot he had purchased to sleep on in order to be near Lisa. It had been three days since the events of Canary Wharf and Lisa's was finally starting to stabilize. Her wounds were bandaged and she was on constant pain meds that were hooked in through her IV. She spent the larger part of her day sedated, blissfully ignorant of the pain she was in.<p>

Ianto himself was beyond tired, after escaping from the ruins of Canary Wharf and setting up Lisa he had had to return and let people know he was alive. The last thing he needed was his accounts frozen, he'll need that money. He had spent hours being checked over, answering questions and receiving medical attention for his wounded shoulder. As far as he can tell he was one of the lucky ones. Well of the 23 known survivors of the over 800 employees.

He needed sleep, his body had felt spent days ago, but he couldn't shut off his brain. Imagines of the past horrors kept floating in, thoughts of what would happen if someone discovered him harbouring a Cyberman, and most importantly what would he and Lisa do now. Yes she was stable but they were quickly running out of supplies. The problem was there were few places that could support her, fewer still he would be able to get her into.

And then came the mind-boggling thoughts that he couldn't understand and simply served to confuse him. Once things had calmed down he was finally able to evaluate what little belongings he had on him. There were three things that stood out. Slightest of which was his watch, he was meticulous with time, always checked it was accurate every morning without fail. So why was it almost five hours ahead? The next two were confusing in equal measure. He had two items on him that he never remembered obtaining, a strange metal glove and a small yellow disc, which he assumed belonged to a computer of sorts, but he never seen one to accommodate such a thick disc. Both also came with a letter, neither of which was very forthcoming, just served to confused him more. Especially since one was clearly in his writing.

The note attached to the disc was written on the envelope the disc was contained in, which he had found in the inner pocket of his suit jacket. The writing was rather neat, most likely belonged to a girl, not that that would help narrow it down. It simply said _"Please give this to Tosh when you meet her, she'd be eternally grateful."_

The second one, the one in his own writing, at least gave him some form of direction. The letter read; _"You must get this glove to Torchwood 3, do not let Torchwood One get a hold of it. Captain Jack Harkness hates Torchwood One, so be persistent and if all else fails wear a suit." _There was also a small metal item, about the size of a pea, stuck in the upper right corner with the words "_For Jack, if things get desperate_."

In the end it didn't matter, Torchwood 3 was already his best bet and if he could help it he would avoid handing over either item or letter. The last thing he wanted was to draw more attention to himself. The plan was simple, head to Cardiff and find a secure place for Lisa until he could convince Jack Harkness to hire him. Sneak Lisa in, get her help, healed and than the two of them would get as far away as possible from bloody Torchwood and live their lives. But for now he needed sleep and everything else can wait until tomorrow.


	3. Ianto's Plea

**Chapter 2 - Ianto's Plea**

Thirteen days. Ianto, like with every task he put himself to, meticulously planned out every detail. Thirteen days was how long he would have to convince Captain Jack Harkness to employee him, a member of the mother branch of Torchwood that the Captain loathed oh so much. Any longer then that and Lisa's pain medicine supply would be diminished. As is, he had nowhere to store her aside from the van he had stolen. Without the medication to keep her sedated her cries would likely be heard and all would be lost .

It had taken him only two days to pack everything from both his own and Lisa's flats that they would require. He had arranged to have the items shipped to Cardiff, as well as his car, while he drove Lisa there in the van. Ianto had managed to acquire a small two bedroom flat not to far away from the bay and a short walk from Bute Park. Lisa always loved walks through parks, she had often looked up new ones and dragged Ianto along in exploration.

The first day after arriving in Cardiff had gone much better than he could have hoped. He had known that the Torchwood 3 base was located somewhere within the area of the Millennium Centre not far from the bay. Now he just needed to find out the entrances and learn some of the employees faces. Torchwood 3 wasn't anywhere near the size of the London branch, but Ianto had no clue exactly how many people it employed. There had to be at least fifty he suspected, any less would most likely be insufficient to carrying out the arduous task of monitoring the rift, he had heard ran through Cardiff, and stopping alien threats.

It was night and the plan was simple, scope out the area for potential entrances. Not that he hadn't been here before, he is Welsh after all. The problem was his family never had much in the way of money. This meant trips outside Newport, where he had grown up with his parents and older sister, were few and far between. The visit down to the bay had proven fruitless, he familiarized himself with the area but could not find any potential ways in. He had given up and decided to try again tomorrow and made the short drive back to his flat.

Ianto stopped in quickly to check up on Lisa and make sure she would have enough dosage to last her through the night. It was late, quarter past two in the am, but he was still wide awake. The park being just around the corner he decided to try clearing his mind with a brisk walk. He wasn't to far in when he heard it, a loud hissing snarl a short distance off, followed by a ruckus of some sort. Two men were fighting all out, one man throwing out punch after punch, the other swiping claws one after the other.

Both men a blur of blue, one in a one piece outfit, similar to what a prisoner would wear. The other in a long coat, flowing out behind him and in his quick movements he looked like some sort of superhero, cape blowing in the wind. Ianto couldn't help but admire the man, it all looked rather dashing.

It was all happening so quickly, and Ianto had had no experience with fieldwork, couldn't even remember the last time he had been in a fight. Probably whenever his older sister Rhiannon had picked on him last during their childhood.

A loud ear shattering scream pulled him from his thoughts, the prisoner looking man was on top of the other biting down onto the mans neck. Ianto grabbed the closest weapon he could find and charged in. He swung blow after blow into the mans back finally drawing its attention as it looked directly into his eyes. Then it hit him, this wasn't a man at all. Its teeth ape like with rough rigid skin. The eyes dark and unrelenting like nothing from this world. It was a Weevil, his first time seeing one himself, they had never turned up in London before, he just read the reports.

Ianto wasted no time and sent one last blow to the creature connecting square in its face and then he had it, the Weevil's full attention. It abandoned the man beneath it and charged full on, a fast swiping claw connecting with the side of his head forcing him backwards.

God, it was all going to be over, his last actions were to blindly attack a vicious Weevil with nothing more than the equivalent of a twig. Not his smartest idea ever, he'd later admit to himself. But it wasn't the end, the man, who Ianto had sworn he had just seen get a chunk bitten out of his neck, had recovered and was now on top of the Weevil and covering it in a hood of sorts after having sprayed it with some sort of Weevil mace.

"Thanks," the only word that Ianto could process at the time, adrenaline still flowing.

"No, thank you. And you are?" The stranger in the long blue coat asked looking more than a little sceptical.

"Jones. Ianto Jones." Ianto had said quickly mentally kicking himself for the James Bond reference. Had to be the adrenaline, he couldn't fight the kid in him that was currently feeling somewhat invincible at the moment.

"Nice to meet you, Jones, Ianto Jones," was the reply he received teasingly. Definitely picked up on the reference. "Captain Jack Harkness."

There it was, he suspected it was him, but now he knew. By some miracle he managed to stumbling across the man he'd been trying to seek out and quite possibly given him the best first interview he could have hoped for.

"I think she looks like a Janet," Ianto suggested looking down at the sedated Weevil.

"Janet?" Jack asked while giving the younger man a rather quizzical look.

"What? I like naming things."

"Why Janet?" Jack asked ignoring the mans odd admittance to naming things.

"Reminds me of my ex."

"Not very attractive?"

"Not at all, stunning actually, just bitchy and a little vicious," Ianto said cringing at the memories.

"Right," Jack replied chuckling slightly.

"You're, um…" Ianto said as he reached out to the check the neck wound the Captain had received. "You were bleeding."

The Captain pulled back to prevent Ianto from getting a closer look at the wound and quickly turned to pick up the Weevil almost effortlessly. He slung the creature over his shoulders and pulled himself upright.

"Thanks for the assistance," he said giving Ianto a slight nod.

"Anytime. Was that a Weevil? Never seen one in person before."

"Don't know what you're talking about," Jack replied turning away and began walking off in the opposite direction.

"Love the coat," was the last thing Ianto managed to get out before the Captain was gone. And of course, caught up in the moment as he was, he completely forgot to ask for a job. Hopefully he would have better luck tomorrow.

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><p>Ianto had spent the entire following day stalking up and down the bay area trying to find any entrances into the hub. If he could find one then he'd have a point to focus on that would give him the most human interaction possible. And maybe meet some of the employees working there.<p>

He arrived just after six am and paid close attention to everyone in the vicinity. The first suspicious thing he noticed occurred around seven. A woman dressed in a dark blue skirt, knee high black boots, white dress shirt and a blue suede jacket. Her hair was curly and tied back and was long enough to fall just below her shoulder blades. A woman he recognized from the aftermath of Canary Wharf, scavenging the ruin. The woman went into what, as far as Ianto could guess, was an abandoned tourist office. The door was locked so he couldn't follow but from what he could see through the window the pamphlets were out of date and the room was coated in a thick layer of dust. Clearly no one had worked there in years.

Another hour passed and Ianto made sure to pay extra attention to anyone entering or leaving that tourist office. And just as he suspected there would be, another person was heading right down the dock towards it. The woman was Asian, Japanese. Black hair and wore modest clothing. A light blue skirt that covered all but her ankles, a dark blue blouse that showed nothing below her neck, and a white shawl draped over her shoulders.

Ianto was quicker in following the woman down the dock towards the office, arriving he quickly looked in the window of the office she had disappeared through. The room was once again empty, but Ianto was sure he saw the wall moving out the corner of his eye.

His final conformation came at nine, almost right on the dot. As Captain Jack Harkness exited the tourist office and cut straight across the Millennium Centre. Ianto tailed him stealthily, well he hoped he was being stealthy, it was his first time stalking anyone so he wasn't sure. He followed him to the Altolusso building, but didn't dare follow him inside. It was about an hour later before he exited the building and returned back to the tourist office. Ianto couldn't help but be a little proud of himself, he managed to follow Captain Harkness around without getting spotted. He fancied that not many could, Harkness was a Torchwood veteran after all. He wasn't sure how long the man worked for Torchwood, but it was at least ten years, and that in itself was an accomplishment.

His goal accomplished Ianto decided it was a good time to go tend to Lisa and spend the rest of the day organizing his flat. The rest of his stuff would arrive any time now from London and he really needed to catch up on his sleep. Tomorrow he'd show up at let himself be known and unleash his secret weapon. Coffee.

* * *

><p>Ianto had worked in a small little bistro in London while he attended Uni, he didn't really need the money so much as Torchwood had paid his way. He had kept to himself for the most part while attending school, so he worked for the bistro as something to pass the time. It had specialized in hot beverages and the owner, a elderly Chinese woman named Mrs Fei , had taught him how to blend gourmet beans to create the most heavenly blends of coffee Ianto had never imagined existed. She could make a damn good pot of tea and a hot chocolate do die for, but the things that woman could do with coffee should be illegal. And she had taught him all she knew.<p>

Her children weren't very fond of him. He could remember hearing her shout at them every time they'd burn a roast. _"The Caucasian blends perfect every time! Try harder."_ She always refused to call Ianto by his name, though she rarely called anyone any one by name so he never took offence. Most people she out right ignored. Definitely not one who should be in customer service, probably why she never worked the register. She'd never say it but she was very fond of him. For nothing to do with him himself or any of his accomplishments, she was profusely proud simply because she found someone to inherit her art. Though it was that very same art that got him more attention then he ever wanted.

It happened shortly after he and Lisa had started dating, they ended up back at his flat and he had made them both a coffee and it was love at first taste for Lisa. It quickly became a long running joke that she dated him for his coffee and bragged all around the office about how good it was. Somehow the rumours had reached Director Hartman's ears and she showed up requesting a cup. From that day forward the Director always showed up first thing in the morning on Ianto's floor to steal a cup. Not that he gained anything from the her noticing him, all it did was make the mornings a little awkward for everyone, never helped his career any.

Hopefully this time around it would.

* * *

><p>Ianto arrived just after eight with a thermos full of coffee in one hand and a empty mug in the other. He waited outside in a direct line in front of the tourist office door not even attempting to hide his presents. Again it wasn't until nine that the Captain made his appearance.<p>

"Morning, sir. Coffee?" Ianto asked as he filled the mug to the rim with the somewhat cooling beverage. He slid the thermos into the pocket of his jean jacket and held out the mug in an offering gesture.

Jack accepted the mug raised it to his lips and took a sip and couldn't suppress the smile the taste brought on. "Wow," really was the only word that came to mind. Now if only his morning coffee wasn't being distributed by a Torchwood London flunky.

"I wanna work for you," Ianto stated trying to keep the urgency out of his voice.

"Sorry. No Vacancies," Jack replied as a final answer.

"Look, let me tell you about myself…"

"Ianto Jones. Born August 19th, 1983. Able student, but not exceptional. One minor conviction for shoplifting in your teens. A number of temporary jobs until moving to London to attend Uni where you worked at a little coffee shop. Two years ago you joined the Torchwood institute in London. Junior researcher. Girlfriend, Lisa Hallett," Jack spat off as he continued across the dock.

"Deceased," Ianto jumped in trying to mask the emotions that always crept in when he thought of her, always in pain.

"Sorry," Jack said though Ianto didn't quite believe him.

"Look, you checked me out," Ianto pointed out as he sped up cutting Jack off.

"You knew what a Weevil was. Thought I was going to have to come 'deal with you.'"

"But instead, you can see I have the right qualifications for the job."

"There is no job. We're nothing to do with Torchwood London. I severed all links," Jack replied starting to show his irritation at the situation.

"Yet it burnt, two members of your team scavenged the ruins."

"We don't want the equipment getting into the wrong hands."

"And you're the right hands, are you? Trial period, three months," Ianto pleaded starting to get desperate, not far off from outright begging.

"No."

"Three weeks. Three days. Let me prove myself to you. I'll work for nothing," Ianto fired off in quick succession knowing full well he was all but grovelling before the man.

"No," was the blunt reply the older man gave.

"I saw what they did at Canary Wharf. What am I suppose to do with those memories?"

"You are not my responsibility and we are not hiring," Jack stated trying to express the finality of his decision.

"Same time tomorrow, then."

"There is no job for you here and there never will be."

"I really like that coat," Ianto shouted out as both a last desperate plea and as a complement. Every time he saw that coat his fondness for it grew just a little more.

* * *

><p>Ten days left and his coffee had failed him. Still it just meant he'd have to try again. This time though he'll use a disposable cup, as Jack walked off with his mug yesterday. Which if Ianto had thought about it, it would have made sense. No one chugs a coffee, especially not one of his quality.<p>

This time he showed up quarter to nine that morning ready to once again try his hand with the Captain, only this time he wasn't alone.

"He's annoyingly persistent," the scrawny smaller man said to Jack as they walked towards Ianto. The new man was dressed in loose jeans that hung low on his wiry frame. He wore a black leather coat, had black hair and eyes to match, which both features stood out on his pale skin. He also recognized him from scavenging the ruins of Canary Wharf.

"Sir," Ianto said ignoring the other man and holding out the styrofoam cup filled with coffee for Jack.

"Thanks, Ianto," Jack smiled taking the cup and giving him a slight nod as the two continued walking. "Still not hiring."

"Next time bring enough for everyone," the pale man shouted back.

It might have helped if he got the other mans name, Ianto thought to himself as he sighed at yet another failed day.

* * *

><p>For another five days he continued the routine, only now he carried a pack of cups with him for the other members that came by. He was surprised to note that no one else ever entered this way. Surely there must be another location everyone else entered from, or else that would mean Torchwood was reduced to four people working beneath an abandoned tourist office and a old man in Glasgow.<p>

He mentally attached words to each of the members he met that he felt described each of them best. Not that he'd ever tell them how he felt, needed to suck up as much as possible in hopes of getting the job. Jack was the dismissive one, everyday he would accept the coffee with a quick thank you and a nod and be on his way. Owen, the pale man from the other day he learned, was the rude one, quickly took to calling him 'teaboy.' Why Ianto didn't know, he brought them coffee after all. Suzie was simply the bitch. She would take the offered coffee with so much as a word or even looking at him, never before had Ianto wanted to hit a woman, but she was asking for it.

The only person whose name he still had yet to learn was the Asian lady he had seen from his first day. She hadn't been by since, he over heard Jack yelling at Owen about dumping his London assignment on someone else and assumed she must have been the lucky recipient. Today that would change though as the woman in question was now walking up the dock towards the tourist office.

"Good morning, miss," Ianto smiled at her offering her a cup of the prized beverage.

"Oh, you must be Ianto Jones," the woman smiled sweetly at him accepting the cup. "I've heard a lot about you," she added noticing the slight look of confusion crossing his face.

"Ah, I could only imagine. Hopefully not all bad."

"Not really bad. Just, just I don't think Jack's going to change his mind," the woman apologetically said while cradling the coffee in her hands feeling sorry for him.

Ianto couldn't conceal the look of distress that crossed his face at hearing the woman's words. Yes he had expected it, but to hear it was something else. If any of the others had said so he simply would have brushed it off, but coming from this woman somehow made it real. Ianto liked to think he was a pretty good judge of character and the woman before him did not strike him as a talented liar or one who enjoyed being mean.

"I'm rooting for you," the woman said.

The words, along with a gentle hand place on his shoulder, pulled him from his gloomy thoughts as he looked up to see woman smiling at him.

"Thanks," Ianto replied weakly, returning a slight smile. "Sorry, I haven't caught your name."

"Toshiko Sato, but feel free to call me Tosh," Tosh said cheerfully while offering her hand to Ianto.

Ianto paused for a moment after the name hit him. Tosh. Could this be the woman he was meant to give the disc to? He quickly tried to recover from his shock and shook the offered hand.

"Ianto Jones, but you already knew that," Ianto said smiling as he saw Tosh's reaction as she took her first sip of his coffee. Eyes lit up and a smile graced her pretty face.

"This coffee is fantastic!" She exclaimed joyfully. "I'll tell you now if I had any input you'd have my vote."

"Why thank you, Tosh."

"So what will you do now?"

"Guess its time for a change in strategy," Ianto replied.

"I'll be rooting for you. I better get inside," Tosh finished waving goodbye as she vanished into the tourist office.

There was only five days left and he could tell his presents was starting to become unwelcome, but he'd have to push. Lisa was depending on him.

* * *

><p>"Toshiko Sato. Welcome back," the sound of Jack's voice echoed throughout the Hub as the man strode over to give her a hug.<p>

"Thanks, Jack," she replied smiling to herself caught up in the mans embrace, taking comfort in it. She couldn't help but enjoy being close to Jack, no she didn't fancy him, at least no anymore. She long since got over that little crush, but he was Jack, her hero. The man that flew in on his white horse, which was actually black and not a horse at all but an SUV, and saved her from the clutches of a UNIT cell which she was to be doomed to spend the rest of her life in. Her knight. A man larger than life and somehow always smelt simply divine, a scent she had yet to locate anywhere else. She would frequently try different men's cologne when ever she found herself shopping, but never found anything close. She was starting to suspect it was his natural body odour.

"How was London?"

"It was fine, I met a couple of really interesting people," she replied as she pulled away to head over to her computer. "So I met Ianto and…"

"No," Jack cut her off knowing full well where she was heading with that one. Toshiko Sato, the sweetest girl you could ever hope to meet, the type who always tried to take in strays.

"Come on Jack, he's nice, persistent, kinda cute and have you tasted his coffee? We should hire him on that talent alone," Tosh said as she reached her station and went about checking the past five days of rift data she has missed.

"Okay, I give you that he's cute and quite possibly makes the best coffee I've ever had, but the rest is going to get him Retconned."

"You cant be serious," she said out loud, while inwardly, knowing full well he'd do it if he had to. Still seemed a little harsh and made her a little sad. After meeting Ianto in person she found she quite liked the man. He seemed friendly and a bit of an introvert like herself, she could see them getting along. The job took up most her time, which meant friends were hard to come by. And seeing as she only had three co-workers, all quite different and far more outspoken than herself, it made life in Torchwood lonely sometimes.

"If he had worked anywhere else, anywhere other than Torchwood One, I might be tempted to hire him. But he didn't. I want nothing to do with them."

"I agree with Jack," Suzie said making her presents known. "Besides he was a junior researcher, no field experience, no weapons training, no medical training and below average technical training we would require of him."

"Suzie's right. He's got nothing useful to offer us," Owen shouted from the autopsy room. "Though I vote against the Retcon and say we let him stand out there bringing us coffee as much as possible."

"As nice as the coffee is, I want him gone. If I see him one more time, I will Retcon him. Tosh, is he still loitering?" Jack asked feeling it was time to put a stop to their uninvited guest.

"Negative, looks like he left fifteen minutes ago. Though I suspect he'll be back, he mentioned something about 'changing the strategy'."

"Good. Tosh, if you see him again, let him know what will happen if I see him around here again. As far as I'm concerned this situation is done."

* * *

><p>It took Ianto three days of planning to finally piece together something that might actually work. He drove all over Cardiff with the standard Torchwood One kit that all company vehicles come equipped with. He was scanning for alien life, rift activity and just about any other signature he could think of. It took a long time but he finally found the perfect thing, trapped inside an empty warehouse on the other side of the city.<p>

Only two days left of medication so he decided today was the day to pull out all the stops and follow the letters strange advice. He looked through his belongings and put on his best suit. It was a solid black and he wore a blue dress shirt with a dark blue tie. He waited until dark and would call in a false Weevil report to a location near the warehouse, where he wait for Jack and the SUV to show up.

Tonight he and Jack would go Pterodactyl hunting.

* * *

><p>AN: If anyone not from the UK or more accurately Cardiff was interested the Altolusso building is one of the tallest in Cardiff and the one they filmed the Jack standing on the roof shots. Well as long as I looked that up correctly it was.<p> 


	4. Deniable Attraction

**Chapter 3 - Deniable Attraction**

Ianto was lying on his back in the centre of his bed staring endlessly into the expanse of his very dull ceiling. It was white, no patterns, no odd lumps, not even a crack. It was simply white. White, the colour that encompassed the entirety of his flat. He still hadn't put up any posters or photos, let alone unpack any boxes. Unpacking and organizing required thought and Ianto did not want to be thinking right now. So he lay.

He lay in his bed, only a double, but without Lisa it felt enormous. His thoughts drifted to Lisa. She was still sleeping, hopefully peacefully, within the confines of that van. He was getting sick of that van, having to move it periodically so that the residents in the area wouldn't phone 999 about a strange man who spent most of his time loitering in a large white van in public areas. Soon he could get rid of that van and Lisa would be safe with the walls of Torchwood 3, all thanks to the successfulness of his plan.

The plan had worked. It worked far better than he had, well planned. Tomorrow officially starts his first day as a fully paid employee at Torchwood 3. He lured Captain Jack Harkness out across the city with a false Weevil alert and stopped him dead in his tracks. Jack was not pleased, to say the least. Went off on a big tangent about not stalking and wiping memories, even threatening to run him down, but in the end the prospect of hunting a pterodactyl, well really a pteranodon as he learned, got him just as excited as it did Ianto.

So they went dinosaur hunting, again he'd later learn it technically was not actually a dinosaur, but he'd ignore that fact as it took away from the excitement of their little adventure. Ianto got to play the bait, second field mission and he was the bait. Again he got excited at the idea, well until he realized bait implied getting the attention of bloody huge flying beast with enormous teeth. Actually pteranodon's didn't have teeth which once again takes away from the excitement of the story, but it did have claws and a huge arsed beak. The exciting part was that Ianto Jones would hold off the beast armed with nothing more than a bar of dark chocolate. Who would've thought that pteranodon's had a sweet tooth, or was that beak?

They had just worked out their plan and Jack was tempting to soothe the creature with soft words and what does the bastard do? He offers the bloody dinosaur a job. That was definitely a bit of a piss off, but his protests would have to wait, they had a massive winged creature to sedate.

That was when the plan went to shite. They were successful in catching it, Jack injected it with the tranquilizer and knocked the thing out cold. What Ianto wasn't expecting was how good the site of Jack flying about laughing, like a child on Christmas morning, made him feel. The man wasn't scared at all and seemed to trust that Ianto would have his back, while simply having the time of his life.

And then, when Jack was just above Ianto, he fell into the younger mans arms and they collided to the ground, narrowly rolling out of the way dodging the drugged reptile. Ianto lay on top of Jack gazing down into the other mans eyes, both laughing carelessly. For the first time since he dragged himself and Lisa from the ruins of Torchwood One, Ianto was happy. And that scent Jack was giving off was doing things to him, what had he called it, 51st century pheromones? Either way he smelt great. And the warmth, he hadn't been this close to anyone in awhile and it felt good, so he lingered.

He lingered, for how long he wasn't sure. All his mind was thinking about in that time was what it would be like to just close the gap between them and kiss the other man senseless. Senses, that was when he finally came to them. Lisa lay stuck by herself within the confines of a small space for going on two weeks now, he couldn't do this to her. Yes the thought also allowed him to ignore that he almost full on snogged another bloke. So he did what any other self-respecting man would do who was faced with confronting a change in ones sexuality, he took off.

He was almost out the door when he heard the other man speak, stopping him in his tracks.

"Hey. Report for work first thing tomorrow," Jack called out after the retreating man. "Like the suit by the way."

And now here he lay trying to forget everything that transpired today. Forget how good that man smelt, forget how good it felt to be so near him, forget how close he came to betraying Lisa and kissing another man. Forget the sudden dread that was creeping in the back of his mind, dread with how bad he was actually feeling about having to deceive Jack, a man he just met. But he will do it, do it for Lisa and their future.

* * *

><p>"Alright everyone, quick team meeting and then go home for the night!" Jack shouted out, his voice echoing throughout the Hub as he the invisible lift descended. Pteranodon still sleeping peacefully at his feet.<p>

"What is that?" Owen asked pointing towards the sleeping pteranodon as he approached.

"That is our new guard dog!" Jack exclaimed unable to control his excitement at the thought of having his very own dinosaur as a pet.

"Your kidding," Suzie interjected staring daggers at the thing.

"I think its fascinating!" Tosh jumped in as she knelt down and stroked its beak gently.

"That's the spirit, Tosh," Jack said as he stepped off the lift to address his now fully assembled team.

"So you're dragging us over to show off the new team mascot?" Owen asked in a sardonic tone as he took out his stethoscope and began checking it over. Hoping no one could see he was actually quite excited at the prospect of having a pet dinosaur. "I'm not cleaning up its shit."

"Which brings me to my second point," Jack beamed at the group.

"No Jack. Tell me you didn't," Suzie interrupted him realizing where the conversation was heading.

"Well, ah. I sort of did, he starts tomorrow," he said smiling to himself as he recalled the excitement of the night. Catching a dinosaur and an Ianto Jones all in the same night. Just now realizing he completely forgot to look into the Weevil sighting he originally went out to investigate.

"What was it that finally convinced you? A quickie in an ally, or a promise to polish the pipes," Suzie chided.

"Actually he helped catch a dinosaur, I'll have you know," Jack retorted sounding more than a little affronted. He would never hire someone for, let alone abuse his potion, such a reason, though he did conveniently leave out the part where he and Ianto tumbled about on the ground and almost kissed. "He's proven he can both handle himself and that he'll have my back when it counts."

"Bet that's not the only body part he'll be having…" Owen decided it best to cut himself off when Jack glared menacingly his way.

"I for one am excited, it's a bit of a workload for just us four," Tosh said truthfully. Even if her and Ianto don't talk much having a kindred spirit floating about would be nice.

"Thank you, Tosh," Jack said. "Now everyone go home and be here for 7:30am, Ianto starts at 8:00am and I want you all ready to greet him."

The group dispersed gradually making their way to the exit, Suzie and Owen grumbling unhappily to each other and Tosh looking rather excited to see her new co-worker again.

Jack jumped about setting up a nest for the Hubs newest occupant. A nice big hole in the wall just below the invisible lift exit. They'll have to find a feeding place ground level and hope she learns to feed from it, else Ianto won't be to thrilled at having to climb that long ladder twice a day lugging 4 stone of fish with him.

Ianto Jones. The man who has been hanging around for almost two weeks driving Jack crazy, yet somehow Jack had managed to completely overlook the man. His opinion of the younger man changed drastically all within the passing of a few seconds. One second wanting nothing more than to run him down in the middle of the street with the SUV, the next mere inches away hoping he'd get over his 21st century mentality towards sex and sexuality and just kiss him.

Oh Jack could see it in Ianto's eyes, how badly the other man wanted to kiss him, could feel his body reacting to the close proximity, body rubbing against body. But Jack has been around long enough to know its got to be at their own pace. He just wanted to make sure that when Ianto Jones finally caught up with his desires Jack would to be there to help him along. He couldn't help but think that things were about to get interesting.

* * *

><p>Jack exited the tourist booth just as the clock stroked eight the following morning to find one Ianto Jones waiting patiently for him, thermos and disposable cups in all. He poured one for Jack and handed it to the older man.<p>

"Good morning, sir," Ianto greeted Jack's arrival.

"Good morning. And its just Jack," he replied as he accepted the offered drink. "I have to admit I'm glad you worked out. Don't think I could have gone back to regular coffee after having this."

Ianto smiled at the compliment, probably the only aspect of himself that one could compliment without making him fluster with embarrassment. If he had confidence in one part of his being it was that he could brew damn good coffee.

"As you wish, sir," Ianto replied not even realizing his slip up. He was taught to always address both his elders and people of authority as either sir or ma'am, no exceptions. It was nothing to do with the business environment of Torchwood One, it was all his parents doing.

"This way, Ianto," Jack said waving Ianto over towards the tourist office, smiling at the continuation of the use of 'sir.' Jack fancied that it was Ianto's way of subtly flirting with him, even if it wasn't meant to be. It was just the way it sounded coming off the young mans tongue, in those beautiful Welsh Vowels, it came out sounding positively dirty.

Jack couldn't help but feel embarrassed as the two of them walked into the tourist office. The room was covered in dust and everything was completely out of date. Not a soul had tended to this place in over a decade. The plan was to whisk Ianto in and show off their secret passage, cause everyone loved secret passages. It didn't matter where they led, they were secret therefore loved by all. Especially ones leading to massive underground bases designed to protect the world from alien threats.

Ianto however didn't even bat an eye as Jack hit the button to unveil the secret passage in the wall. He just stared around scowling at all the dust, clearly unimpressed by the lack of cleanliness. Just Jack's luck, a clean freak. The one person in all the world that you could throw in front of a million cool gadgets, dinosaurs, vaults filled with all kinds of exotic creatures and the only thing he asks is…

"When was the last time someone dusted in here?"

To say that Jack was disappointed was an understatement. If the state of the tourist office had Ianto this distracted by lack of cleanliness the rest of the tour was going to be terrible. The rest of the Hub was far worse, takeaway boxes littered everywhere, dirty mugs scattered all over from God knows when. He was pretty sure no one has done dishes in at least a month. So much for showing off, Jack got the feeling he was going to spend the rest of the tour feeling like a scolded child who forgot to clean his room again.

Jack managed to pry Ianto away from the tourist office before the young man had a chance to locate a duster and dragged him down towards the heart of the Hub. The two stood together as the cog wheel rolled aside and Ianto got his first look at the large expanse that was Torchwood 3.

"Jesus," Ianto whispered in awe of everything before him.

"Impressive, right?" Jack asked positively beaming with excitement seeing Ianto finally taking an interest.

"I guess that's a word for it. How the hell did you manage accumulate so much rubbish? Trash can not in the budget?"

"Seriously?" Jack asked gob struck by Ianto's complete disinterest in any of the fantastical things he's shown him. "I show you secret passages, leading to secret underground bases and technology you could only dream of seeing and that's all you can say? Next hire I'm taking them down through the invisible lift!"

"You have an invisible lift?" Ianto asked far more excitedly then he intended to sound.

"Ha! I knew you were impressed!" Jack beamed.

"Yes well, didn't want to stroke that ego of yours, couldn't have it any more inflated than it already is," Ianto said cheekily.

"Why didn't you say so, I have plenty of other things you cold stroke," Jack grinned watching Ianto avert his gaze towards the floor trying to conceal the red colour his face was quickly turning. One of the things Jack loved about 21st century humans was how easily embarrassed they were. Jack loved seeing people blush, people from his time had little shame and even less modesty when it came to sex, so blushers were a rarity. And to Ianto's dismay Jack found him positively adorable when the young man blushed. It was a look Jack would love to see again.

"Careful, sir, that's harassment," Ianto said all the while still smiling.

"Oi! Get a room, we don't need to be hearing that," Owen shouted from his desk effectively disrupting their moment.

"Right," Jack said as he gave Owen a glare, getting further annoyed at the smug grin on the mans face for the interruption. "Introductions. Doctor Owen Harper, resident genius Toshiko Sato and Suzie Costello, my second-in-command." Jack said as he pointed each of them out.

Suzie gave him a curt nod and abruptly turned around and went back to her work, Owen simply waved and did the same. Tosh made her way over and gave him a quick hug to welcome him to the group.

"I'm glad you managed to get Jack to change his mind, not sure what you did but it worked. He was bouncing off the walls with excitement last night when he told us," Tosh said smiling as Jack gave her a disapproving glare at the release of to much info.

But when he saw Ianto fluster again he quickly forgot about what Tosh had just said and enjoyed red glow Ianto was now giving off.

"Alright. Lets head to my office and discuss your roll here and then I'll show you around the rest of the base," Jack said as he led Ianto up the stairs leading to his office.

Ianto entered the room and closed the door behind himself. He gave the room a quick glance as he walked over and sat in the chair opposite the Captain. It was a decent sized office, had a desk, couch, filing cabinets and what looked like a vault of some kind in a corner. The desk was littered with large stacks of papers, nothing really out of the ordinary with the exception of one item, a chunk of coral that lay at one corner.

"So Ianto, tell me what exactly your roll at was at Torchwood One was," Jack asked as he jumped straight into work mode.

"Well I was a junior researcher, as you know. I primarily worked with data entry and statistic analysis. Other tasks included retrieval and returning of items from the archives, so I'm fully aware of the archiving systems and maintenance," Ianto answered.

"Here, all those are useless," Jack stated bluntly. "Sadly our operation isn't big enough to even bother with or gain anything from your skills. If you're interested in a job here I warn you're responsibilities will be rather, mundane."

"That's fine, sir. I take pride in my work no matter what the task. And as you have probably worked out over the past two weeks Torchwood is where I want to be."

"Good to hear. You will act as both my personal assistant and general administrator. Your responsibilities to the team as a whole will include; maintaining Hub cleanliness, making coffee runs, and ordering food once a day and twice if days run long. For me you will be expected both to collect relevant files to current cases from the archives and return finished ones. You will take messages while I'm out in the field and help with the minor day to day stuff. I'd also like you to get that tourist office fixed up and up to date. Don't think we didn't notice how quickly you were able to work us out, I don't want that to happen again. Are you with me so far?" Jack asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Good. I will give you a full written listing of expected tasks tomorrow and remember anything not listed is not your responsibility. I can guarantee you both Suzie and Owen will try and dump as much of their more tedious responsibilities on you as they can. Do not let them or you will quickly be overwhelmed."

"Understood."

"I would also like to have you sit down with Tosh and have her teach you how to cover our tracks. Which includes Retcon and crowed management, scene clean up, planting stories and minor hacking. We tend to have a few regular journalists try to write a few stories surrounding what we do. Simply put you hack their computers and delete anything they have on us. Your file shows you have basic medical training, is that correct?"

"Very basic, I can administer needles, put in an IV, set broken bones but not much more."

"Still, that means we can take Owen out on more field missions if need," Jack added.

"Is that all?"

"I think that covers everything. Owen is in charge of the vaults, but I would like you to feed our new addition that we picked up last night and clean up after it."

"Not a problem," Ianto responded.

"So what did you want to name her?"

"You're asking me?"

"Well, you were the one who found her. Besides I remember you liked naming things so figured you I'd let you do the honours," Jack said smiling at the younger man.

"Hmm, well I always wanted to name a dog Myfanwy."

"Myfanwy, it is," Jack beamed with excitement as he jumped up out of his chair. "Come Ianto, let us go finish your tour."


	5. First Signs of a Broken Time

**Chapter 4 - First Signs of Broken Time**

The first week of Ianto's employment with Torchwood 3 went by in a flash. The Hub was a mess and the odour given off by the numerous moulding takeaway boxes and coffee mugs was unpleasant to say the least. He had managed to fill eleven bags of rubbish to the rim with all the trash littered about the building and it took him hours of scrubbing to get all the contents growing within the mugs sufficiently clean. It took 48 hours with less than 6 hours of sleep to get the Hub clean enough to meet Ianto's standards.

His next task was to go about updating and maintaining the tourist office and get it ready to reopen. It took up almost the remainder of the week but he had done it and at the start of the following week he would once again open the office for business.

Ianto quickly went about setting the team into a routine. With ordering lunch at 2:00pm and on days where the team were working late, which seemed to be often, he would order dinner around 7:00pm. He also brought everyone coffee every three hours starting a 6:00am, when he decided his shift would start. Jack tried telling him it wasn't until 9:00am but Ianto simply ignored the man saying there was just to much he needed to get done, particularly monitoring Lisa.

During the tour Jack had taken Ianto on during his first day, Jack had shown him the kitchenette and the coffee machine that everyone claimed was possessed. It hadn't worked for any of them and on one occasion a screw, which Owen swears was not loose, shot out and hit the doctor in the eye. Since then no one went near the thing. Ianto however gave it a clean and with no trouble at all had it producing the most delicious coffees the team had ever tasted.

Ianto's list of chores was mounting up quickly from the already substantial amount of tasks Jack had assigned him. He had spent time here and there working with Tosh learning how to cover their tracks after a mission. Toshiko later praised Ianto's aptitude for quick learning to Jack. Within the week he was able to Retcon witnesses, body disposal and body planting depending on the circumstances. And the part Ianto found most enjoyable was hacking peoples personal computers, not that he admitted that to anyone.

Owen and Suzie both treated Ianto with contempt, at least until they started piling all their unwanted chores on him like Jack had warned. Ianto was now finding himself feeding the residents of the vaults, insuring all the kits and SUV were stocked and ordering any supplies the Hub needed. Which worked out fine for him as that made things easier, no one ever noticed things go missing they were unaware were even ordered.

Despite Jack's warning to not let others dump extra work on him, the man himself slowly started piling on more work. Ianto was good with numbers and a stickler to detail which made dumping lots of Jack's more tedious paper work on the young man far to tempting to pass up. Still, Ianto was fine with it. He was always one who enjoyed keeping busy and feeling needed. In fact there was very little Ianto didn't like about his new job. The only problem he had was Jack's tendency to flirt, the problem wasn't that he didn't enjoy it, it was that he did.

As much as Ianto noticed Jack's flirting he was starting to suspect there were numerous time that he didn't realize Jack was hitting on him. Jack's flirting could be quite vulgar, those are the ones Ianto always noticed, but at times could be rather subtle and thoser were the ones that tended to go unnoticed, but he was quickly learning.

Getting hit on was a new experience in its own for the young man. He had asked Lisa out after weeks of working up the nerve to do so and before her had had only one other relationship, which was more of a high school fling which lasted just over a month, but he would probably never forget Janet. And now there was Jack.

Jack was new, Jack was exciting, Jack was Jack. At times outrageously vulgar and other times incredibly sweet. It was hard to believe they were one and the same person sometimes, but regardless to whether the man was making sexual innuendo or telling him how beautiful his eyes were, (or arse, Jack does like to let Ianto know he is quite fond of his arse) Ianto could not help but like it all. It was becoming impossible to deny that there was an attraction and that was the problem. Especially with his fiancé still being alive and depending on him to keep her that way. Whatever it was that is growing between him and Jack was impossible. Especially since if the older man ever found out he was keeping a partially converted Cyberman in his basement. He would likely put a bullet in Ianto's head if he found out.

But Lisa was worth the risk. It had only taken him three days to plan everything needed to sneak her into the building. The Hub was a rather large area for only the five of them to cover. There was an old loading entrance used back in the late 1800's when the branch had first opened. About fifty years ago the way had since been deadlocked shut, with only a simple low level access code required to open, and was monitored by a single CCTV camera on the inside. No other CCTV cameras seemed to have been installed yet anywhere in the connecting tunnels. It would seem that no one anticipated corrupt personal within the organization, or simply over the years it was just forgotten about.

With everything planned out he just needed to wait until a convenient time to transport Lisa into the building, a perfect location was sported in the lower level storage rooms, there were so many of them that no one was likely to stumble upon it. Especially since no one seemed to venture out of the main area of the Hub. Ianto suspected it was likely because anything required from the areas below they simply made him fetch for them.

Now he just needed to find the perfect opportunity to sneak Lisa in. Luckily waiting was no longer as much of a problem as it had been. He now had access to the medical supplies required to aid Lisa so he could bide his time. Though his opportunity came much sooner than he had anticipated. Archie, the Director of Torchwood 2 located in Glasgow, had called about a potentially dangerous item he had stumbled upon and wasn't comfortable keeping at his site. With Torchwood 3 being the most secure location now it was decided to store the item here. Jack took the team leaving Ianto behind watch over the Hub. The trip would take most of the day and it was enough time to get Lisa set up and settled in. As advanced as the Hub CCTV cameras were being able to physically attach a scrambler on the one camera covering the door was enough to complete his task unnoticed.

Now here he and Lisa were over three weeks after the disastrous events of Canary Wharf, most of which Lisa spent in a drug induced coma. Her wounds had healed and she was stable, in constant pain, but stable nonetheless. He adjusted her dosage and soon she would awake and he'd be able to talk again to his beloved.

Which would happen in the early hours of the following morning.

* * *

><p>"Ianto?"<p>

"Lisa? Your awake!"

"Where are we?"

"Torchwood 3. I managed to get employment here and snuck you in a backdoor."

"They don't know about me?"

"No. I'm scared they won't understand and have you killed," Ianto sighed dejectedly. The team never failed to keep him up to date on their feelings regarding the carelessness of Torchwood London, or how close to world destruction they had brought on.

Cybermen were something to be feared and destroyed on sight. Ianto couldn't help be amused by everyone's hatred of Cybermen, they never lived the nightmare and could never understand. Cybermen weren't something to be hated, they were something to be feared. But Ianto knew that, knew it better than anyone else. The thing was Lisa needed his help and that made conquering his fear easy.

"Agh."

"Lisa! Are you alright? Does it hurt?" Ianto asked as he checked her over again.

"Its manageable. You did good, thank you, Ianto."

"Anything for you."

And it was true, he would do anything for this woman. He was already risking his life, for surely if they were found out he would be executed just as swiftly as her for harbouring an enemy. An enemy. The thought was laughable that someone could ever think Lisa an enemy. She was sweet, loving, sexy and always pushing Ianto out of his comfort zone. Ianto had done so many things with this woman he never would have without. Many of them simple things, things he was sure he would hate if with anyone else, but with her they were precious moments.

Things like camping. Ianto didn't really care for life outside the city, was never one to smell the roses, until Lisa. She made it fun. Oh there one camping trip had been an utter disaster, raining all weekend, dog pissing on their tent, freezing their arses off. But when she crawled into his sleeping bag and cuddled up to him he didn't even notice the downpour soaking through their thin tent walls.

"So tell me, how did you manage to convince to infamous Captain Harkness to hire you? Thought he despised One." Lisa's voice broke the silence and pulled Ianto from his thoughts.

Ianto couldn't help but look away feeling guilty. Yes the simple answer was he proved his worth by helping capture a Pteranodon, but the truth of it was that whatever connection he and Jack shared at that moment when he lay on top of the older man, it was mutual. Ianto wasn't kidding himself he knew that intimate moment they shared had had some affect on why Jack decided to employ him. Since then Jack has made sure Ianto was perfectly aware he was interested, Ianto had only to except Jack's advances.

"Ianto? What is it? Is something wrong?"

"We caught a Pterodactyl together and it seemed to have convinced him."

"Seriously!"

Ianto couldn't help but smile at the excited outburst. It was the first response he could recall of her showing any emotion in her words, at least since that day. He took it as a sign of her health improving.

"But there's more, isn't there?" Lisa asked still seeing the guilt etched into her lovers eyes.

"I think Jack's interested. In me that is," Ianto admitted. He never was very good at lying, it was a skill he was just developing, at an accelerated rate, but lying to Lisa was still a long ways off. If he ever could.

"The rumours are true then, he really will shag anything as long as its gorgeous enough," a slight smile lit up Lisa's face. Gossiping about the infamous leader of Torchwood 3 was a favourite pass time of hers and her social circle at work.

"You're not mad?" Ianto asked a taken aback by how well she was taking it.

"Did you two shag?"

"No!" Ianto replied a little to defensively. "I'd never do that to you."

"Ianto. Its alright. Its really no difference then those times I used to show a little leg to get the bouncers to let you in the clubs If anything I'm disappointed I didn't get see you work your wiles on the man."

"I don't have any wiles."

"Oh Ianto. For someone who pays so much attention to detail you really do over look yourself a lot. No, you're about to start a modeling career, but you do have this adorable somewhat mysterious look about you that woman and apparently some men, find irresistible. Plus you have that cute little arse of yours."

Ianto was busy turning ten shades of red, he was still working on how to accept a compliment, so instead of saying thank you he moved on with the conversation.

"I'm worried, Lisa."

"What about?"

"Jack's persistent. The other day he came looking for me. If he shows up while I'm here…"

"Then keep him distracted," she cut him off.

"But how?"

"However you have too."

And there it was. Lisa had given him permission to use any methods required to keep Jack at bay. Now a whole new assortment of problems presented themselves. First off was coming to terms with his desire to be with Jack, of course he'll convince himself it was for Lisa's sake. Then there was that tiny fact that Jack was a man. Ianto didn't really know what to do when it came to sex with other men, in theory sure, but in practice? Lastly was that his Lisa would never tell him to manipulate another person for self gain. His Lisa would find the idea deplorable. Not to mention she was a strong believer in monogamies relationships.

Once again he'll ignore the uncharacteristic behaviour of his girlfriend and chalk it up to the trauma she has been through and the desperation of their situation.

* * *

><p>Ianto entered the main area of the Hub, his mind elsewhere running over his conversation with Lisa. It was just past 6am and he was coming to start the first rounds of coffee for him and Jack. Only to his surprise it wasn't Jack he was faced with.<p>

"Tosh? You're in early," Ianto said as he approached the woman who was busy strumming away at her computer.

"Odd energy patterns coming from the bay area, Jack and Suzie are there checking it out," Tosh replied still focusing on her task at hand. "Seems Owen is still resting his hangover and will be in later."

_"Tosh, we're here. Anything else you can tell us about the readings?" _Jack asked activating this com-link.

"Not really, just that the readings are quite low. They're consistent with residual energy found on items that came through the rift awhile ago. Must've washed ashore just recently I'd assume," Tosh replied.

"Was just about make some coffee, did you need any help?" Ianto offered.

"No thanks, Ianto. A cup of coffee would be fantastic though," Tosh replied over her shoulder giving Ianto a quick nod. "Shit what now."

"What's wrong?"

Tosh ignored Ianto's question and activated the button on her headset. "Jack, we've got rift activity, but the readings are really strange."

_"Do you have a location yet? And what do you mean by strange?" _Jack inquired.

Toshiko took a moment to reply as she quickly locked in on the rift coordinates. "The location is actually right in your proximity, so keep an eye out. As for the strange bit, normally rift spikes are quite erratic, these follow a pretty consistent pattern. I might even go so far as to say they're controlled. Oh that's weird…" Tosh lost her train of thought as readings she had never seen before flashed out on her screen.

_"What's weird?" _Jack asked.

"Just got a negative spike, I've never seen that before."

"_Negative!" _Jack shouted panic apparent in his voice. _"Suzie where are you?" _

"Jack. Jack!" Tosh shouted into the her headset as Ianto came over to join her after hearing the conversation. "What's wrong Jack, is Suzie alright?"

There was a long pause before Jack finally responded, sounding rather distraught. "_Suzie's gone_."

Ianto and Tosh both remained silent neither sure of what to say. They weren't close to Suzie but it was never easy to lose a comrade, especially in a group as small as theirs. They were both so caught up in their thoughts that Tosh almost missed the same rift spikes flare up again at the same location.

"Jack! The spikes are back, get the hell out of there!" Toshiko shouted into her headpiece in warning.

There was another unbearable silence as they stood there waiting for Jack's reply.

"_Suzie's okay!" _Jack's voice finally rang through. "_She somehow managed to fall in the water and short out her headset. Oh and she lost the tech that we came all the way out here to get. Says it was some sort of metal gauntlet."_

Hearing that made Ianto's already confusing world feel that much more off. Was it possible that the metal glove they had just lost somehow ended up in his possession over a month ago? And what does that mean for him now? If there was a specific time the note intended he hand the glove over surely this was it.

"_Tosh, we're coming in. Can you have Ianto make some tea and have a towel ready for Suzie?" _Jack asked as he terminated the link.

Ianto had waited until Suzie and Jack were close before he made Suzie's tea and Jack's coffee and left them on the desk closest the cog wheel entrance, along with a towel for Suzie to dry off with. He shouted to Tosh that he'll be back shortly and ran out the base to make a quick trip home. He was already keeping to many secrets from Jack, this was at least one he could share that hopefully wouldn't cause to much backlash for him. He'd turn in the glove.

The letters and the disc however he'd keep to himself for now. He wasn't ready for quite that much honesty.

* * *

><p>Ianto returned to the Hub not half an hour after his abrupt departure. He carried with him the black carrier bag which he had the glove safely concealed within. He swiftly walked through the cog wheel door not really paying attention to where he was going and walked straight into Jack.<p>

"Ah, sorry, sir," Ianto mumbled quietly trying to ignore the firmness of the other mans chest.

"Ianto! Glad your back, was starting to think you were trying to skip out on our shooting lessons," Jack positively beamed with excitement as he grabbed hold of Ianto's shoulders helping him balance after their collision.

"Sir. Could I talk to you for a moment? In private."

"Ianto Jones, trying to get me alone are you. Well since you asked nicely I promise I won't bite hard," Jack grinned over his shoulder already bouncing up the stairs and into his office.

Ianto gradually followed after Jack and stepped into the office closing the door behind him as he clutched to the strap of the bag. Still worried about how this was going to play out. The stern look on Jack's face, which was nothing like the flirty one had only moments ago, was not making him feel any more confident.

"Any chance you're going to explain to me how you managed to get a hold of that bag? Cause if my memory is correct it hasn't been invented yet," Jack asked, well it sounded to Ianto as more of a demand.

How was he to answer that. In truth he couldn't remember. He just remembered it showing up one moment. One second he was with Lisa and her friends the next he's collapsing to the floor landing on top of the thing. Hopefully the truth would be enough, but he was already regretting his decision to turn the thing in.

"I just thought it was a regular bag."

"It's called a jamming bag. Looks plain enough but its insulated with a rare material that blocks out signals. Anything inside would be undetectable with technology today."

Ianto never really put much thought into the bag before. He really just thought it was a plain old bag, for lap tops or something. It brought him back to his James Bond fantasies and having cool gadgets to tinker with. He guessed that explained why those same readings that led them to the beach didn't lead them to breaking down Ianto's flat door.

"I didn't know."

"If you had no clue about the bag, I'm guessing that's not what this visit is about," Jack said face still filled with scepticism.

Ianto opened the bag and reached in and pulled out the glove and placed it firmly down on Jack's desk and stood back waiting for the other mans response.

"Well this is interesting. Want to tell me how you managed to get that away from Suzie? I'm assuming that's the glove in question she mentioned."

As jack finished talking it hadn't escaped Ianto's eyes that the mans hand was now hovering over his Webley.

"I'm not sure if they're the same. I would guess not as I've had that since Canary Wharf, but I cant rule out the possibility that they're one and the same."

"If you've had it since then, why wait to give it to me now?"

"Until I overheard you and Tosh this morning I forgot all about having it. Between trying to forget that day and trying to get a job here it was a low priority."

It wasn't exactly the truth but it wasn't a lie either.

"How exactly did you come across it? I doubt they have unidentified tech left out for just anyone to grab, let alone a junior researcher."

Now came the hard part to explain, how on earth do you explain that it magically appeared.

"Honestly, sir. I have no idea. That day is a whole confusing jumble of events that went by in a haze. And honestly it feels like a gap is just missing."

"Explain."

"Well, I can remember being with Lisa, my girlfriend, in the employee lounge surrounded by her friends talking. The next everyone is gone and I'm trapped in that hell. I'm assuming that's when those things popped up, but like I said everything is a haze."

"So why tell me at all?"

"Sir?" Ianto asked in confusion. He thought this is what Jack would have wanted, the truth.

"You have to admit this all sounds pretty suspicious and you could have easily kept it to yourself and not bothered going through this. So again, why tell me at all?"

"Because it's the truth. And I want you're trust, sir," the words left Ianto's lips before he even realized he had said them. What shocked him the most about them though was how true they were. And by Jack's reaction they were the right ones.

"Just what I wanted to hear," Jack beamed with an impossibly wide grin, jumping up out of his chair as he walked over to Ianto and placed his hands on the younger mans shoulders, patting them enthusiastically.

"So that's it?" Ianto asked more then a little sceptically. Surely such a story filled with holes had to warrant further investigation.

"Not at all. But I do appreciate the sentiment. Once Owen gets here we'll have in run a full physical, blood work and all and try and piece this mystery together. And Ianto. I want you to know that I do believe you. This whole situation is bringing up far to many questions to overlook. Come," Jack said as he picked up the glove and exited the office.

"Suzie, catch," Jack shouted as he jumped down the steps tossing her the glove. "Is that the glove you found earlier?"

"Yes. But how?" She replied baffled as she held the glove in her hands.

"Ianto's had it for the last month, Jack replied. "Now, team meeting. Tosh call Owen and tell him I want his scrawny arse here an hour ago."

* * *

><p>Owen entered the boardroom about 20 minutes after receiving the call from Tosh, a new record for the Doctor and part-time lush. When he entered the room the others were already gathered and waiting for him and as he took his seat Jack began.<p>

"Alright people, it seems that we have a bit of a conundrum on our hands. Early this morning myself and Suzie went to investigate some readings out by the bay, which turned out to be resonating from this glove we have hear." Jack said as he pointed out the glove Ianto had brought in. "Shortly after Suzie found the glove strange readings were picked up from the rift. Suzie then somehow found herself about 10ft away in the middle of the bay, no idea how she got there, and the glove was nowhere to be seen."

"So, how is it sitting right there?" Owen asked.

"Good question. Ianto, brought it in not long after we returned to the hub. Now here is where our little conundrum gets really confusing. Apparently Ianto picked up this little baby a month ago as he was escaping Torchwood Tower, without any idea of how he found it."

"But how is that even possible?" Owen again.

"Rift in time in space," Tosh jumped in to answer the question. "We already know the rift takes things from one time and place and dumps them in another, its not impossible. My concern is the probability of these events so closely linked playing out as they have for it to be a coincidence."

The team sat quietly everyone considering what ones possible agenda could be for setting these events in motion if it was planned, but everything seemed far to random to see any connections. The team continued mulling over different ideas before Suzie broke the silence.

"Ianto was in London when he found to glove, correct? I didn't think the rift could spread out that far."

"It cant. At least not without help," The fact that it had effected Ianto in London meant the rift had had aid from another device that could also manipulate time, which Jack could only think of three possible devices that had such properties. The rift manipulator found within the Hub, but is far to primitive piece of tech to accomplish such a task. The second was a vortex manipulator. Jack didn't like that idea any better, it would imply the time agency was involved somehow. Lastly there was the TARDIS, Jack hoped that was the case. It could possibly lead to the reunion he's been longing for, for over a century.

"What facts do we have to work with here?" Owen asked.

"Suzie caught in a temporal disturbance which relocated her about 10ft and took the glove. One month prior the glove shows up mysteriously in Ianto's possession. He has no recollection of how he got it and seems to have about five hours he can't remember."

Throughout the whole talk Jack had noticed Ianto remained silent and seemed deep in thought. And from what Jack could tell the young man seemed to be struggle with some form on inner conflict, possibly even looking a tad guilty. Which in itself was rather odd, Ianto normally kept his face neutral, never portraying any signs of distress.

"Ianto, do you have anything to add? If so now would be the time."

Jack had been correct. Ianto was having an internal debate on whether or not to turn in the letter that came with the glove. The letter didn't exactly implicate him, other then to show foresight in seeking employment at Torchwood 3. Ianto however was hoping whatever that metal item was might help him understand what had happened. The whole situation had him more than baffled and that bothered the young man. He always prided himself on being knowledgeable in whatever he was doing. This situation left him ignorant of a part of his own lift. He didn't like it.

He decided his curiosity was stronger than his self preservation instincts and he pulled the paper out of his pocket and handed it over to Jack.

Jack read the letter and was able deduce that whoever wrote it had future knowledge of Ianto's life and was trying to guide him. Now two questions came to mind now. First was how a 51st century technology got attached to this letter, the second was…

"Do you recognize the writing or know who wrote this?"

"Its my writing," Ianto replied. "I just don't remember ever writing it."

Jack was more than a little annoyed that Ianto did not turn then letter in when he had the glove, but he could understand the hesitation. He was new to the team and it took a lot of work to in the door. This new information was very suspicious. As much as Jack wanted to yell at the Welshman for withholding information, he wanted to develop their trust more.

"Thank you for showing this to me, I understand it must've been hard," Jack said, happy to see the tension visibly dissipate from the young man.

"Okay, Tosh I want you analyzing those readings from the rift. Check back about a month ago and see if you can pick up any activity with similar readings. it's a long shot as they would have originated in London. Owen, get blood samples from both Suzie and Ianto. I want you to check for everything. Missing memories, make Retcon traces priority. Suzie, I want to know what that glove does. Whatever you're working on drop it and give that glove your full attention. Ianto, go with Owen. He'll give you a full physical and once that's done come see me in my office. Lets get to work people!" Jack shouted to the group as he headed for the door. He didn't want to get into detail about the letter in front the team. Suzie and Owen already didn't trust Ianto and he didn't want to give them any ammo.

* * *

><p>Jack sat in his office alone as he rolled the small metal ball between his fingers. The device was the equivalent of a Time Agency memory stick. At least the letter narrowed down the possible influences of whatever was going on. He had to admit he was a little disappointed to find out the Doctor wasn't involved. Things also became worrisome. If the Time Agency was involved things were bound to get complicated quickly. 51st century tech versus 21st, there would be not real contest if things became hostile.<p>

Thinking speculating wasn't going to get him anywhere he decided to just get it over with and find out what they wanted. He opened up his wrist strap and inserted the metal sphere and activated it. What he heard wasn't anything like he had anticipated. It was a simple voice recording, not even thirty seconds long. A voice recoding from himself.

"_Gotta keep this brief. Simple answer, time isn't a straight line, as you know. Let this one go. I know you hate unsolved mysteries, but its important. You'll thank me someday. And Jack, don't take him for granted."_

Jack gritted his teeth at the message. He really did hate incomplete projects. But there wasn't much of a choice here, if his future self was tampering with the timeline it was for something important. That much he knew. The part that bothered him the most though was the last part of the message. Who should he not take for granted? Everything seemed to point towards Ianto, but he was just a simple fancy right now. A challenge and a warm body to pass the time until his reunion with the Doctor.

Either way he had to stop investigating whatever was going on. He'd let his team finish their assigned tasks and then Retcon them and place the evidence in the secure archives. He hated Retconning his team, but it would be a necessary evil. There is no way any of them, especially Suzie would let it go. He'd keep her assigned to that glove though, evidence points to the glove was meant to be here.

"Sir, you wanted to see me," Ianto knocked at Jack's door as he entered the room.

"Owen done with the physical?"

"Yeah. Just waiting on the blood work."

"Ianto, I need your help with something that might make you a little uncomfortable. The metal item attached to your letter was a message. It's a warning that investigating this may effect the timeline."

"And what uncomfortable thing did you need me for?"

"The team aren't going to want to stop, I plan on calling a meeting and I will need you to administer each of them Retcon so they forget today's events."

"I take it I'm to take the Retcon as well, sir?"

"No. That would be pointless. I'd have to erase everything back until you retrieved the glove or else you'd wonder how we obtained it."

"Oh, I was expecting…" Ianto started to speak as Jack cut him off.

"Expecting me to fire you for not coming to me sooner with this?" Jack finished for him.

"Yes."

"I'm letting this one slide. I understand why you wouldn't want to come forth with this. But from here on Ianto, I need you to trust me. Like I'm trusting you. These are the codes to the secure archives, once the Retcon is administered I'd like you to collect all the data everyone has obtained, minus anything pertaining to just the glove, and lock them away."

"Thank you, sir. It means a lot your putting faith in me. I wont let you down," Ianto lied. He knew full well he already was letting Jack down. Jack was just ignorant of what he has hidden away in the depths of the Hub lower levels, though he couldn't help feeling guilty about it. Lying to Jack was becoming more and more difficult to bare.

"Now, lets get to work. Prepare the coffees and meet us in the boardroom," Jack said as he gathered everything he'd need for the meeting. He headed out towards the door and stopped just before leaving to address Ianto one last time.

"Don't think I have forgotten your firearms training. Tomorrow morning 6:00am sharp in the range. Be there."


	6. Playing With Firearms

**Chapter 5 - Playing With Firearms**

Ianto had arrived early that day. He knew Jack expected him for firearms training, so he came early tended to Lisa and went about setting up the firing range. He placed all the guns out neatly on the table with two pairs of protective goggles and two pairs of ear guards. And then he stared intensely at the weapons. He'd never fired a gun before, never really held one before he set these ones up here. At Torchwood Tower there were over 800 employees and about 200 of them were simply security. Junior Researchers were at the bottom of the food chain, they did the grunt work and went home. Ianto was sure in an emergency they'd likely be used as human shields if anything.

So he stared. Intensely. He felt like he had forgotten something but he couldn't for the life of him imagine what.

"You're here early, as usual," Jack said as he entered the firing range. He took a look at the table and smiled at Ianto's efficiency and then asked, "no bullets?"

Bullets. Of course guns need bullets to shoot things. Ianto flushed in embarrassment at the oversight. Some James Bond he'd make.

"I'll go get them now, sir."

"Tell me Ianto, have you ever fired a gun before?"

"No. I've held a few but never fired," he answered while placing an array of bullets on the table, not really knowing what kind went in what gun he figured a few of each was safest.

"Alright. Lets start off with the basics then. We'll set you up with a handgun. This one is a simple Beretta model," Jack said as he picked up the weapon and handed it to Ianto. "Fire a shot or two at that Weevil there, pretend its aggressive, so you want to aim for a kill shot."

Ianto picked up the gun and held it out in a typical James Bond fashion and fired the weapon hitting the Weevil right in the throat.

"Well done. Normally you'd want to aim for the heart or head, throat would kill it too but it would be a slow death. But a really nice for a first shot," Jack said encouragingly.

Ianto blushed in embarrassment and said to Jack, "err, I was aiming for the chest, of the Weevil to the left, sir."

"Oh. Well nice attempt, I suppose. Now aim for the one you were originally aiming at and fire off a round."

Ianto did as he was told and fired off the rest of the clip. A total of 3 bullets managed to hit the Weevil, one in the left arm, right shoulder, and somehow in the left ankle. Ianto had no idea where the other numerous bullets ended up but he suspected it was not where they were meant to go.

"Wow, Ianto. Just wow. I have seen countless people make first attempts and you are by far the least talented of any of them," Jack taunted the young man sounding far more cheery about Ianto's apparent lack of talent with guns than Ianto thought the man should. "You're going to need lots of training."

Jack walked over to the table and grabbed another clip as he brought it over to Ianto. He showed the man how to reload the weapon and directed him back into position.

"Alright, lets adjust your stance," Jack said as he moved into position behind Ianto. "Arms up, relax the elbows. It will make it harder for someone to grab at your weapon, the recoil will be easier on your arms and shoulders and you're arms will get less fatigue during longer missions."

Jack's front was pressed firmly against Ianto's backside as he reached over and helped the young man adjust his arms. "Feet apart, about shoulders width and no more," Jack said as he slid a leg between Ianto's and pushed them apart widening his stance.

Ianto's was starting to breathe heavy, it was those bloody '51st century pheromones' or whatever Jack called them. The man smelled incredible and their closeness wasn't exactly helping his focus. The feel of Jack's breathe on his neck, mixed with the warmth exerting from the older man was debilitating. So much so that Ianto didn't even realize his hands grip tighten around his gun causing the weapon to fire prematurely.

Both he and Jack startled at the sound of the unexpected shoot piercing throughout the room.

"Sorry, sir," Ianto said stupidly.

"Not a problem, it happens," Jack replied. Ianto could feel the wide grin on the mans face pressed against his cheek. The bastard knew exactly what he was doing to him and Ianto wanted nothing more than to smack that grin off that handsome face. "Try again."

Ianto aimed the weapon at the target fully aware Jack hadn't moved and was still pressed firmly against him. If anything Ianto swore he somehow moved in closer. He fired the gun in quick succession, this time missing all savour one shot that just grazed the hip of the Weevil.

"I didn't think it possible, but you actually have gotten worse with tutelage," Jack teased, that damn grin still there. Ianto was now irate. Jack had been flirting with him ever since he joined the ranks of Torchwood 3 with slight touches, suggestive wording, and now this. Ianto hadn't had sex in over a month and going from a relationship of young lovers to cold turkey was getting to him. He desperately wanted to have Jack but between Lisa and the conditioning of society he still hadn't worked up the courage to follow through. So he did what any sex deprived man would do while struggling with his sexuality. He got angry and directed it all at Jack.

"Well maybe I'd shoot better if you weren't busy grinding up against me and distracting me!" Ianto yelled as he pulled away waving his arms around in the air for dramatic effect.

Jack ducked out of the way and grabbed Ianto's arm as he pulled the weapon out of his grasp. "Watch it safety is still off!"

"Its not like its loaded, bullets are all stuck in a wall somewhere out there!" Ianto retorted still in full tantrum.

"Was wondering when you'd hit this stage. Was hoping we'd get through training, I rather enjoy training," Jack smiled, not even bothering to hide that damn grin that was still planted on his face.

"What are you talking about, "stage?""

"All you 21st century men go through it. Sudden desire to bed another man and all of a sudden your world is flipped upside down."

"You've been researching sexuality using you're conquests for data?" Ianto asked incredulously.

"I wouldn't exactly call it a science project, but you all seem to follow the same patterns, or stages if you will. You've been coming along much slower than average, " Jack said smiling at the young man.

"Sorry to inconvenience you," Ianto spat. "What stage do I fit into?" Ianto asked."

"Denial. You want me but you wont admit it. Don't worry the next stage is acceptance and then we'll be having loads of fun," Jack teased grinning fiendishly at Ianto.

Even Ianto's rage he couldn't deny the thoughts that kept intruding his mind. Thoughts of how attractive the older man looked no matter what emotion's his face held. Ianto suspected the other man was incapable of making an unattractive face. Ianto wasn't sure if it was trying because he wanted to rebel against Jack's claim he was in this so called 'denial' phase or if it was simply a matter of desire and lack of gratification over the past month but he decided to just fuck it and just go for it.

Within moments he closed the gap between him and Jack and pressed his lips tightly against the older mans. The kiss was sloppy and full of need. Ianto was just tired of everything that had piled on his shoulders and needed this. Needed some form of release. His hands grabbed at Jack's trousers fumbling with the button.

"No need to rush it, slow down," Jack said as he pulled the younger mans hands away and backed him up into the armaments table. "You're pushing yourself and you'll end up panicking on me. Just relax," Jack coaxed. It wasn't by any means the best kiss Jack's had, it was a bit rough for his taste. But he couldn't deny the spark he got from it, his desire to bed Ianto was stronger than he's had for another person in awhile. "Not yet, when we finally go at it its going to be because you want to and not because you're trying to prove something."

Ianto couldn't help but feel grateful to the older man for taking the decision out of his hands. He felt a panic attack coming on but was being to stubborn to stop. Resting his forehead against Jack the two men stood together for awhile getting their breathing under control.

"Thanks," Ianto finally said. "Not ready yet, but Jack," Ianto paused a little apprehensive to admit what he was about to tell Jack. "I do want to."

"Of course you do, who wouldn't want to sleep with someone as dashing as myself," Jack smiled that annoyingly bright smile of his. Smug bastard, Ianto thought. "Next time you throw yourself at me make sure you're ready. Won't bail you out a second time," Jack warned in a playful tone.

With that Jack pulled away from Ianto and exited the firing range leaving the flustered Welshman to his thoughts. Ianto couldn't remember the last time he had felt that aroused. He suspected it was the day he had lost his virginity to Janet in his teens. He really hated what Jack could do to him and as much as he fancied himself to be the one that held the power in their little game, Ianto knew if Jack pushed he would cave.


	7. Everything Changes

**Chapter 6 - Everything Changes**

Over the next few months Ianto's set a strict routine and everyone at the Hub either had not noticed or simply allowed it as Ianto made everyone's jobs easier. He kept everyone well fed, the only person who he tended to forget was himself. At least until Jack started insisting he join them for meals. Always patting the chair to his right. Ianto fancied himself Jack's right hand man. He continued completing his regular job requirement along with those he picked up from his fellow co-workers. He kept to himself and fell into the shadows adeptly completing any tasks with the same attention to detail he prided himself on, no matter how large or small the job. On top of everything he already took upon himself he also tasked himself with fixing the archives.

To Ianto's horror no one had paid any heed to the neglected levels for decades and were in such a state of disarray it made the young man cringe. He set about organising everything and sending any boxes of unidentified tech to Tosh to play with. The two of them spent a great deal of time excitedly tinkering with the gizmos and gadgets Ianto would find buried beneath the bowels of Hub. The rest of the team were grateful as it kept her from giving them one of her techno speeches that none could comprehend. Ianto half the time had no idea what she was saying, but from the way her eyes were lighting up he didn't have the heart to stop her.

Owen eventually ceased the hostile attitude and their relationship developed into mutual sarcastic banter at the each others expense. They were never chummy but it was a bond of sorts. The only member he still had problems with was Suzie. The woman over the past months had been isolating herself from the rest of the team. Her hours spiked dramatically directly after she discovered the gloves function. To raise the dead. Albeit for only a few short minutes but it worked. She had been begging Jack for weeks to let her test it on humans and Jack had finally agreed. It hadn't worked on anyone in the morgue, at least not without the knife Ianto discovered packed away in the archives, made of the same metal as the glove. By stabbing the test subject and using the glove combo she was successful in bringing people back to life for similar amounts of time.

After giving Suzie the knife it seemed to have worked as a peace offering. They both seemed to know the other was up to something but neither knew what. Aside from the glove the Tosh continued to test the odd bit of tech they had picked up on their trip to Glasgow. How Archie knew it was dangerous know one understood, the crazy old man admitted to Jack he had know clue what it did, he simply felt it was dangerous. And the mysterious events were completely forgotten as per Jack's orders. Only he and Ianto remembered anything of it, but never spoke of it.

Suzie was still sceptical of Ianto and he often saw her eyeing him, however lately she was far to dedicated to her research and had all but given up on keeping an eye on him. Still, even with everything already on his plate he made sure to find room for the two most important things in his life. Lisa, who was still trapped in the storage room fighting for her life. The other being Jack, their relationship had been progressing steadily. Jack still flirted, not just with Ianto(though he was Jack's main target). Jack had cut back a bit in public knowing Ianto wanted to keep their friendship/relationship secret. They still hadn't slept together, but since that day in the range Jack's advances extended to be more physical in nature. Hugs and quick kisses with the occasional grope. Ianto let him, its not like he didn't enjoy it, as long as Jack was subtle when he did. Ianto didn't fancy rumours of him 'bagging the boss' to surface.

Ianto still wasn't brave enough to do much in the way of reciprocation, aside from a few touches here and there. Weeks of Jack sauntering about in those tight pants which clung to his arse left Ianto far to curious to not give it a little pinch, it didn't seem to bother Jack in the slightest. He seemed to have the patients of a saint and never pushed, Ianto almost wished he would.

Ianto came to know Jacks patterns and made sure to be well away from Lisa when Jack's flirtatious moods came on. Jack seemed to be up for just about anything, anytime, anywhere. His current favourite was cornering Ianto in the archives. The young man tried his best to try and anticipate those ones. His team mates weren't stupid and would definitely be wondering what Jack's sudden interest in the archives was.

All in all they he balanced everything quite well. Kept his team satisfied and Lisa as comfortable as possible. He never talked with Lisa about his flings with Jack, it became a silent agreement between them. She knew but didn't want to hear about it, so they never talked about it since that first time it came up.

Jack had tried teaching Ianto how to shoot several times since their first failed attempt with Ianto showing little improvement. Jack soon wrote him off as a lost cause and kept him back at the Hub and out of field missions, short of clean ups. Shooting practice for Jack was simply a reason to fondle Ianto.

Life was good, well at least until a string of murders started to spring up and a local PC started getting nosey. The woman liked to snoop and was determined, as such she took up a lot of Ianto's already full schedule. Someone had to monitor her and keep her off their tracks.

* * *

><p>"Come in, Ianto, " Jack called out from within his office.<p>

"How did you know it was me?" Ianto asked as he entered the room and closed the door behind him.

"Firm knock. Suzie and Owen would have just barged on in and Tosh's knock is much softer," Jack replied as he absent-mindedly stroked the coral which was the one constant figure to grace the mess which Jack refers to as 'his desk.'

"What is your obsession with that thing?"

"It symbolises hope for me," Jack answered truthfully. "Takes a long time to grow, but its always there as time passes. A one constant."

"Don't know if I follow."

"Maybe someday I'll explain it better," Jack smiled as he placed the coral back and leaned back in his chair. "So, Ianto Jones, what do I owe the honour of this visit?"

"Just here to pick up your completed files and to update you on that PC," Ianto replied as he walked around walked around to Jack's side of the desk. Jack leaned back to let Ianto through so he could reach the files in the far corner of his desk.

"I don't know why you insist on leaving your completed files way over here, it would be far simpler if I didn't have to all but crawl over you to get to them," Ianto said as he squished in between the small space between Jack and his desk, facing away from Jack towards the files he was attempting to take with him to be put away.

"You know Ianto, I'm old, stuck in my ways. Its always been like that and you'll just have to get comfortable with it," Jack said as he stared at Ianto's backside a meagre foot and a half away from Jack. The young man was bent slightly over the desk so his arse was sticking out. The thin material of his trousers displaying the globe shaped flesh hidden within. This was the real reason why Jack kept the files in such a inconvenient to access spot. Jack loved that in all the months Ianto has worked for him he still somehow did not seem to work it out. Jack couldn't help but be awe-struck by how positively naïve Ianto could be at times.

Today Jack just couldn't resist, he reached out and grabbed hold of the vulnerable flesh in each hand and kneaded it in his firm grip.

"Jack!" Ianto gasped at the unexpected yet not unwelcome touches, as he lost his balance and landed flatly on the desk.

Jack reached around and started unbuckling Ianto's trousers but stopped when Ianto's hand was felt gripped his own.

"I'm sorry, Jack," Ianto murmured weakly as he pushed Jack's hands away feeling guilty as he heard the older mans low but frustrated sigh. Their sexual banter had been going on for almost six months now and Ianto still hadn't so much as let Jack cop a feel without a layer of clothing in the way. Most people would've given up by now.

"Its no big deal, its not like I'm not getting any elsewhere," Jack snapped out before realizing what he was saying, immediately regretting it. It was just a frustrating situation to be around someone for months who clearly fancied him, as he fancied the younger man, only to be turned down constantly because of he considered to be archaic ideals of what sexuality should be. "Ianto, I'm sorry that came out…"

"Don't sir," Ianto said as he pushed Jack back down onto his chair preventing him from getting up. "I wouldn't have dared delusion myself to think you wanted anything more than a warm body."

"Ianto…" Jack tried again as he reached for the younger mans arm.

Ianto pulled back to quickly and retreated for the doorway and as he reached it he opened the door and stepped into the arch and paused. Without turning around to face Jack he said, "that PC, the PC which followed us from the hospital is now standing outside the plass trying to work out where you all disappeared too. She's been there for now," Ianto paused a moment to check his watch, "three and a half hours now," Ianto told Jack on their stalker problem.

"Determined little thing isn't she, her curiosity already cost the life of one person, we best take care of her before things get more complicated."

"There is nothing wrong with a little determination, sir," Ianto said at his defence remembering back to when he was the one stalking the Captain begging for a job. "And that hospital porter really wasn't her fault, it just means we're doing out job if they're ignorant of alien threats."

"True. But we're going to have to deal with this. Update me in a hour and if she hasn't given up we'll invite her in, give her a tour and send her home with a nice refreshing drink laced to the rim with Retcon."

"As you wish, sir," Ianto said as he vanished through the exit.

The last thing Jack needed right now was a nosey PC snooping about. Especially not now with the situation that's come to his attention that he would soon have to deal with.

* * *

><p>"Jack you're not going to believe this, that PC is back on the plass again," Ianto shouted up towards Jacks office.<p>

"Tell me you're kidding. We Retconned her she shouldn't have been able to break it," Jack moaned.

"She must have hit a trigger somehow."

"Finish shutting down the Hub and go home, I'll deal with it," Jack said as he jumped onto the invisible lift.

"Jack be careful, Suzie is still MIA since we Retconned the PC the first time," Ianto warned.

"I'll be fine, I'll see you tomorrow."

* * *

><p>Jack arrived at surface level just in time to catch the tail end of Suzie's confession to PC Gwen Cooper, about how she had murdered three people in order to gain test subjects for the glove. It was not news to Jack, he had noticed the wound marks on the bodies of the murder victims and recognized them from the ones created by the knife used to test the glove in the morgue.<p>

"It was the only way. The more I use the glove, the more I control it," Suzie said.

"I don't understand. What glove? Where have I seen you before?" Gwen asked confused. Her memories a jumble with bits of incoherent memory surfacing not making sense.

"If I can get enough practice, then think of what the glove could do. If I could get it to work all the time on anything, beyond the two minutes, if I could get it to work permanently, it could resurrect. Resurrection on demand for the whole world. Isn't that a good? Isn't it, though? Well, that's what I've been working for. All day and all night. The rest of them go swanning about while I'm working. You got to get inside this stuff. Surrender yourself to it. Like I did with the knife and the glove," Suzie rambled on. "And that's why the perception filter isn't gonna work on me," Suzie shouted as she quickly turned her gun on Jack who had been patiently awaiting a moment to intervene.

"Who is he? Where did he come from? What have you done?" Gwen cried as Jack's lifeless body collapsed to the floor up receiving a bullet wound directly to the forehead. "Please don't."

"I can't let you go," Suzie said apologetically.

"Please."

"I've got to. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I've got to. I've got to. I've got to," Suzie repeated over and over again in a mantra trying to work up the nerve to pull the trigger.

"Put down the gun," Jack pleased as he stood behind Suzie, the two woman looking on as the bullet hole in Jacks head healed itself before their very eyes. "Suzie, its over. Now, come with me."

Suzie ignored Jacks request and simple resigned herself to her defeat. She pulled the gun up to her chin and pulled the trigger, only hear the soft sound of the trigger clicking, but no bullets being released. Three more times she pulled the trigger hopelessly as no bullets would discharge.

Jack quickly pulled out his webley and hit Suzie in the back of the head, effectively knocking the woman out. He grabbed hold of her gun in one hand and supporting her weight easily with the other. He slid the gun into the pocket of his beloved RAF jacket and slung Suzie up onto his shoulder in a fireman's hold.

"I remember," Gwen cried as she collapsed to the ground. The stress of the past events finally taking its toll.

"Ianto, are you still in the Hub?" Jack asked as he activated his headset.

"_Was just finishing up and about to head out, sir." _Ianto replied.

"Gonna need a hand here, we've got a situation," Jack said as he started at a shell shocked Gwen and held onto an unconscious Suzie. A situation might be a bit of an understate, he thought to himself.

* * *

><p>"What the hell happened?" Ianto asked as he held onto Gwen allowing Jack to focus on Suzie while the lift descended back into the Hub.<p>

"Long story. Cliff notes version, Gwen remembers everything and Suzie is responsible for those three murders and attempting to kill our PC Cooper here," Jack replied.

"Jesus. What do you want me to do?"

"I'll toss Suzie in the vaults for now and I'd like you to take care of miss cooper here. Get her a warm, drug free beverage to help calm her nerves. I'll meet you in the boardroom once your done."

Jack took off down towards the Vaults as Ianto sat Gwen down on the couch and went to go make her a cup of tea. After handing the drink to the shaken constable Ianto ran off to join Jack in the boardroom.

* * *

><p>"What the hell am I suppose to do with her?" Jack asked angrily as he paced the confines of the boardroom. "She's killed three innocents and I cant turn her over to the authorities because I would have to Retcon her first and she wouldn't know what she did to begin with. So that leaves me to either execute, Retcon before Torchwood or leave her in the vaults for the rest of her life."<p>

"Losing her is going to hurt the team, we're already understaffed before this whole mess," Ianto pointed out.

"Yeah well, that's a moot point because there is no way I can let her remain on staff after this."

"True enough."

"What do you think of our PC outside?" Jack asked wanting to avoid the subject of Suzie for the time being.

"She took to the existence of aliens well enough, but wouldn't be my first pick of constables to liaise if that's what your thinking."

"She's determined, headstrong and passionate. Maybe she was right and we need to be reminded there is a real world out there that needs us," Jack argued.

"You're the boss, if you want to hire her its your call. I was just saying she wouldn't have been my first pick. I left several files on your desk filled with good candidates."

"Didn't really like any of them," Jack lied, not wanting to admit he hadn't read it yet. "Don't think we really have much of a choice. We'll give her a trial run. She broke the Retcon in a few short days and I'd rather not risk what effects my have by administering another dosage so soon."

"Its your call."

"It is," Jack replied a little more assertion than he had planned. "Sorry, its been a long day."

"Its alright. I know the Suzie situation is complicated and you're faced with making a decision you probably don't want to make, but I have a suggestion."

"Go on."

"As you know I've been cleaning out the archives recently and me and Tosh have been checking out some of the alien tech that had yet to be identified. We found a piece of tech from a military species known as the Judoon. The tech is a simple ankle bracelet, not really designed for comfort but we can add some sort of cloth inline easily enough to make it wearable by humans. Tosh, worked out that its psychically connected to the wearer and has several settings. Basically it causes intense pain to someone who tries to perform certain actions. Seeing as it's an item designed to hold prisoners it would take Tosh little work to set it up to prevent wielding weapons or attempting to cause others physical pain. It can even be specie specific. For example, one could fire a weapon at a Weevil but not at a human," Ianto finished explaining.

"So you're suggesting I neuter her?" Jack asked.

"In a sense, yes."

"Hmm, we'll go over it further with Tosh in the morning. If she is confident she can set this up then that's what we'll do for the time being. I'd like you to locate a potential room for her to stay in, one that can be locked from the outside. If this works out she'll be a permanent resident here and as much as its tempting I don't want to leave her in the vaults."

"As you wish, sir."

"I'm going to go and offer our PC Cooper a job, you should head home and get some sleep," Jack said as he exited the room.

* * *

><p>Ianto made a quick stop off to check on Lisa and talked to her for awhile before heading home. He was just about to exit the Hub and go home when he saw the light on in Jack's office. He decided to make a quick pit stop and check in on Jack too. The older man was sitting at his desk inspecting Suzie's gun lost in his thoughts. Ianto entered the room tapping lightly on the door.<p>

"Did you need a coffee or something before I head home, sir?" He asked.

"No thank you, Ianto," Jack replied absent-mindedly.

"What do you got there?" Ianto asked motioning towards the gun in his hands.

"Suzie's weapon. Its odd. She was our weapons expert and never made mistakes when it came to weapons, yet somehow her gun wasn't loaded save one bullet," Jack explained.

"I might have had something to do with that," Ianto admitted.

"Oh?"

"I'm not sure if you noticed but I've been in charge of reloading the ammunitions and supplying the kits in the SUV and weapons vaults."

"I thought that was Suzie's job, no?"

"It was and somewhere along the line I took over. A few days ago, right after we Retconned Gwen, I don't know why but I felt the need to unloaded the bullets in Suzie's gun."

"Do you often feel the need to make sure a co-workers gun is unloaded leaving them vulnerable?" Jack asked surprised Ianto wouldn't have found it dangerous to put a team mate in potential risk like that.

"I can't really explain it, sir. Its was like déjà vu. I just got this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that said if I didn't unload the gun something bad would happen."

"Its possible. Those tests we did on you back when that damn glove first turned up showed traces of Retcon in your system."

"I thought Retcon wiped the memories clean?"

"Normally yes, but it has two flaws. First you witnessed today, with the right trigger it can be broken."

"So the déjà vu might have been from something that was wiped trying to make its way out?" Ianto asked.

"Its possible."

"What's the second flaw?"

"Retcon only wipes the memories, emotions, trauma and feelings remain. Which is why Torchwood staff that leave of either their own accord or forced out have high suicide tendencies. There is nothing scarier than not knowing what you're afraid of."

"Glad I didn't vote for Retcon like so many of the others after Canary Wharf. How nice of them to leave that part out."

"That's Torchwood One for you. Follow the rules and cover your hide by any means," Jack said as he placed both his own weapon and Suzie's in his desk drawer. "Oh, and before I forget, Ianto. If you're going to unload a weapon, make sure you check the barrel. Suzie's gun had one shot inside."

"Oh God! But you're both alright?" Ianto asked worriedly.

"Yeah, it missed," Jack lied thinking he better check the CCTV later to make sure nothing got picked up. "Anyways, Ianto go to bed. Sleep in tomorrow, you work to much," he said as he rubbed his palms over his face thinking for once he would love nothing more than to sleep in too.


	8. Suzie's Plight

**Chapter 7 - Suzie's Plight**

"She did what?" Owen bellowed far louder than required in the confined space of the boardroom.

Jack had called the team in early to enlighten them that their team mate had tainted the Torchwood name by her actions and also to inform them of their newest member who would start after the weekend. Owen was a little irate that he was not asked what he thought, but Jack simply pulled the 'boss card.' The thing that had everyone livid was how to deal with Suzie. The one thing they agreed upon was that Retcon was off the table. Owen and Jack thought it too small a punishment while Ianto and Tosh had had more moral reasoning that taking away five years of ones life was wrong. Tosh simply wanted her off the base.

The problem now was how to deal with their deranged comrade. Owen was of the opinion to put a bullet in her and be done with it and if Jack was honest with himself it was what he was leaning towards too. The only thing saving the woman in question was she had been Jack's first successful employee. She had been with him since shortly after the old Torchwood 3 director went nuts under the influence of alien tech and killed off the entire team save Jack himself.

He had stolen the promising young Suzie Costello right out from under UNIT's nose. They had been furious with Jack pulling rank and taking her. The organization had put a lot of funding into training her. Firearms expert and military strategy, the makings of a great commander, she had just lacked experience, which had made the woman a prime candidate for Jack. Fully trained but not yet tainted by military conditioning. He could mould her how he saw fit. And that was what had Jack so angry, more so at himself than the woman. At some point he let her slip through his fingers and she had done the unspeakable.

If Ianto had not been present Jack was sure he would have already 'dealt' with the issue, but the young man being ever the professional kept his feelings out of it and offered Jack an alternative. The 'Judoon killer crippler,' as Ianto had named the ankle bracelet. The device could track her movements and prevent her from causing both herself and the others harm.

"Tosh, can you reprogram the device to fit our needs?" Jack asked ignoring Owen's outburst.

"Yes. Myself and Ianto are already familiar with it so I just need to know exactly what you'd like its settings to be. Would take about fifteen minutes to program," Tosh explained.

"For now I don't want her to even be able to look at a weapon or think about harming anyone. I just want her out of my sight until at least hearing her name doesn't make me want to shoot something. Which brings me to my next point. Ianto she's your responsibility. This was your idea so you find her somewhere to stay and look after her needs."

Ianto simply nodded at Jack in acknowledgment. The entire team, save himself, wanted to go nowhere near the woman. Truthfully the woman freaked Ianto out and would rather not have to deal with her either, but he figured if he could keep her alive, should anything go wrong with Lisa, Jack might be inclined to forgive him, or at least not shoot or Retcon. Surely hiding ones partially converted girlfriend in the basement was less severe a crime than murdering three innocents in cold blood for mere scientific research. Suzie was had in away become Ianto's beacon of hope, should things go awry.

"As far as I'm concerned we treat this as an employee death. Suzie and all her belongings become property of Torchwood. Ianto you're in charge of clearing out her flat and putting everything in storage," Jack ordered.

"As you wish, sir."

"I don't want to hear another word about Suzie. None of you want her here, tough. For the time being this is how we're dealing with it. Get use to it. Now down to business. Tosh first priority, get that Judoon device up and working. And then get back to work on that piece of tech from Glasgow. If you can't work it out today have Ianto file it away in unidentified, we've wasted enough time on it. Owen, forget your Weevil research for the time being, I want those dissections you've been putting off finished. Ianto, has the cover up on the death of the porter at the hospital been taken care of yet?" Jack asked.

"Finished the day of," Ianto replied ignoring the scowling glare he got from Owen. The meetings always tended to follow the same pattern with different cases. Jack would scold Owen for doing things before his priorities and Ianto would confirm his work had been completed by the time requested. Owen would be ecstatic if Ianto would simply show up for work late just once and show everyone he wasn't as efficient as he appeared to be. The man never carried a PDA or took notes of any kind, how he managed to never forget a thing Owen had no idea. He assumed he must have an eidetic memory or something.

"Good, then get a room ready for Suzie and let me know when you're ready and I'll transport her there. Then take care of her flat. Everyone, lets get to work," Jack commanded.

* * *

><p>Ianto found a suitable room to house the Hubs newest tenant. It seemed to be a room used to house employees needing either long term care or who were suffering from a condition the general public should not be aware of. It already was equip with the basics, a small single size bed, wardrobe, lamp and table, and a couple of small bookcases. Most importantly a in suite restroom and a steel reinforced door that could be locked from the outside.<p>

Having set up the room, Ianto informed Jack of its whereabouts and told him he would head out to take care of her flat, leaving Jack to relocate Suzie into her new accommodations.

Jack entered the cell which contained Suzie, the woman seemed to still have some sense as she would not meet Jack's eyes. A sign of remorse, however slight. At least it was there.

"Put your leg up on the bed," Jack ordered the woman.

"Why?" Suzie asked worried of what the man had intended to do. She knew better than anyone else on the team Jack had a dark side that you did not want to be out the receiving end of.

The last time she had seen it was in her defence. A boyfriend, the one she had had when she entered Torchwood, had become resentful that she had been picked for a job that gave her rank over him, a senior UNIT officer. She had come home to share the good news that she had been promoted to second-in-command, but couldn't explain to him of what she commanded. He got drunk and gave her a black eye that night. When Jack found out he paid the general a visit and he ended up in the hospital the following morning with two broken legs and no memory of how he got them. So needless to say she was apprehensive about the request, but to scared to not follow it.

She was relieved when all he did was attach a rather bulky hunk of metal around her ankle. She recognized the device and knew its function. She was pleased to see that someone had taken the time, she suspected Tosh, to inline the inside with a soft material. Before it was just a rough metal, seemingly designed for discomfort. She was actually relieved to see the device, it meant they decided against Retcon and execution, at least for the time being. While she had attempted to take her life at the time, it was a split second decision made while in a state of panic. She really had no desire to die, she really did love her life, her job. She just allowed herself to get too caught up in it.

"Come with me," Jack ordered, trying to have as little conversation as possible with her.

Suzie decided it best not to ask questions, Jack clearly didn't want to be here dealing with her. The two walked down a series of halls and eventually Jack led her into a rather cosy looking room in comparison to the vaults.

"As far as the world knows your dead, until we decide what to do with you this room will be your home."

As much as she didn't want to risk enraging Jack with questions there were two that had been nagging her that she really needed to know the answer to, so she decided to take the risk.

"Why am I not dead or Retconned?"

"Would you like to be?" Jack challenged.

"No. Its just…"

"Ianto." Jack cut her off.

"Ianto?"

"He came up with this alternative, you can thank him for being alive. I suggest you make nice with him because the rest of us have no intention of visiting."

"I see," she said a little sad and somewhat trapped in thought. Ianto she hadn't expect out of everyone, the way she treated him was borderline hostile. Jack was just about to leave when she asked her second question. "I shot you, I know I shot you." Well more of a statement but one that needed an answer.

"You're alive. That's all you need to remember from that night," Jack warned.

She didn't press the question and got the implications behind his response. She was to forget what she saw and not tell a soul. She didn't like it, but she would abide by it, if she was to have any hope of regaining any of her old life she would abide by it. With that Jack was gone and she was alone in the empty room. No telly, no books and nothing to do but remember.

* * *

><p>Over the next few days Ianto sorted out Suzie's flat and everyone went about their business as though Suzie never existed. She certainly wasn't a few floors below them confined to a room. The Glasgow device, as everyone was referring to it by, went unidentified and placed into the secure room Ianto set up for unidentified tech. If it wasn't safe for certain, Ianto would rather it be locked securely to prevent incident.<p>

Ianto had been in to see Suzie several times in past three days in order to bring her food. The two of them hadn't shared a single word in all his visits. They didn't really have much to say, they never talked beforehand to start now seemed off. He had noticed there was little to nothing for Suzie to occupy her time with so he decided to bring a small number of Suzie's belongings for her to read. No form of electronics, Jack refused to give her anything she could potentially tamper with. Just some cloths, something to write with, and a mixture of books that belonged to both himself and her. He figured she would have already read her own books and might enjoy something different.

"These aren't mine," Suzie pointed out as she looked through the small number of belongings Ianto had brought in for her.

"They're mine, thought you might get bored and want something new to read."

"Why are you doing this?" She asked. She had no idea why he went out of his way to not only save her but now he was her lifeline to food, drink and entertainment. "I treated you like shit."

"I like to think that if one does something wrong there is a chance for redemption," Ianto replied.

"I know your up to something."

"Oh?" Ianto said far more flippant then he felt. He was curious just how much she knew about his secret.

"I never worked out what, but I know you are."

"If I was its nice to know it could be no worse then what you did," Ianto replied relieved to hear she never worked it out.

"That might be true, but I can only imagine what Jack would do to you if he found out whatever it is," she added, smirking slightly as she noted the young man tense at her words. "I was just an employee, cant imagine what he'd do to someone who was shagging him."

Ianto cringed at the comment. He didn't like that she had noticed his and Jack's flirtations.

"Jack wouldn't, doesn't shag the staff unless he fully trusts them," Suzie continued taking satisfaction in tormenting her caretaker. "You must be amazing in the sack to have Jack wrapped around your finger so quickly."

"Enough!" Ianto raised his voice, annoyed with himself at the temporary falter in the mask he concealed his emotions behind. He couldn't help it, he hated lying to Jack and to have someone, especially Suzie rub it in his face hurt. "I'll be back later with your dinner, enjoy the books." He said as he fled from the room.

* * *

><p>A few hours later Ianto returned with Suzie's dinner and placed it on her tray, he quickly turned and tried to flee as quickly as he could not wishing a repeat of their previous conversation. He had almost made it when he heard he say, "I'm sorry."<p>

It was very quietly said, so much so that he nearly missed it.

"Sorry, what?"

"I said I was sorry," she spoke, looking up at Ianto.

"What for?" he couldn't help his surprise, an apology from her was the last thing he ever expected.

"For what I said earlier. I hate relying on people and I hate that its you I have to rely on."

"Its fine," Ianto replied.

"And thank you," she added, far more sincerely then she liked to admit. She really did appreciate the extra work he was clearly putting in to make her life far more comfortable then she felt she deserved.

"Your welcome," Ianto said in understanding as to what she was thanking him for. He was just about to attempt to leave again when Suzie spoke up.

"What mission are they working on?" She really wanted to know, she loved all the strange and exciting cases that came up while working at Torchwood.

"Alien sex gas," Ianto replied amused by the expression that swept over the woman's face. She wanted to be out there investigating it too.

"Alien sex gas?"

"The new girl accidentally broke open a meteor that crash and unleashed it."

"New girl? God please tell me Jack didn't," Suzie wondered if that insufferable PC Cooper was her replacement. If so it didn't take Jack long to find a suitable replacement.

"Gwen Cooper, the PC that had been stalking us. Jack decided to hire her."

"Didn't take them long to replace me, did it," Suzie spat out full of venom.

"Didn't have a choice really. Jack didn't want to risk Retcon over dosage and you did leave us in bad shape," Ianto pointed out. "I'm nowhere near field ready so that left only three operative, two of which specialized in non lethal fields."

"I know, but did it have to be bloody Gwen Cooper? How is she doing, I bet she's better than me."

Ianto decided to ignore the self-deprecating part and simply answer truthfully based on what he had seen so far. "To early to tell, but she is strong headed and has shown quick adaptability. I'm worried her emotions will get in the way of her job though. Already accused the team of being heartless as a possessed girl was suffering. As a result Jack was impressed by her outspokenness and told Owen to do a full diagnostic in person to speed things up, clearly against procedure, I might add. As a result Owen went in blind without the normal analysis we would have received from the cells bio-scanning systems. As a result the girl escaped and their all out their hunting her down, yet again," Ianto explained.

"Oh my God! You're jealous!" Suzie shot out excitedly. Somehow her interest in the case had vanished and she was thrilled that she detected some apparent jealousy in him.

"Excuse me?" He asked not really sure what she was getting at.

"Jacks showing an interest in the new girl, you don't like not getting Jack's full attention."

Ianto had been trying to deny it all day. He had stumbled upon Gwen showing Jack her profiling of the victim, useless information and a waste of time Ianto thought, but Jack had been impressed by it. So much so that be broke protocol and sent Owen into the cell blind. "_Its brilliant, you are brilliant_," Jack had told her. So brilliant that she wasted two hours of her time to find a bunch of pointless info that helped absolutely nothing in regards to the case and as a result gave the girl a chance to escape, thus potentially putting more innocents in danger.

Ianto wanted to tell Jack that it was a breach in protocol but with the feelings boiling inside and not wanting to admit to being jealous, especially since he had a girlfriend, he choose against speaking up. What bothered him most however was that Suzie was hitting so many nails right on the head. He didn't like it, not one bit.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Fine, have it your way. You are my lifeline to the outside world so I'll try not to upset you," she said, voice full of that gloating tone Ianto was swiftly getting sick of. "Keep me updated, I haven't enjoyed a good gossip in years."

Ianto decided to take that as his chance to escape. He had been read far to easily these past few days and wasn't liking it at all.


	9. Ianto, the Human Chameleon Circuit

**Chapter 8 - Ianto, the Human Chameleon Circuit**

The team had returned after 'triumphantly' destroying the alien sex gas and decide to head to the pub and celebrate their newest member and all she had done to solve the case. Jack was pleased with her and boasted to Ianto about her bravery. Sacrificing herself to the creature in order to save the girl. What Jack had left out was it was his plan and he had everything already set to keep her safe. They planned to lure the alien out and then trap it in the transportable prison cell until it died from exposure to Earth's atmosphere. Jack had invited Ianto to come join them, but he choose to decline as Jack had his arm planted firmly around Gwen's shoulders while he asked him. Ianto was under no illusion that he and Jack were exclusive, but until now Jack had the courtesy to not flaunt anyone he was interested in in front of him.

So Ianto had politely declined under the guise that he was far to busy notifying the twelve families that the sex gas monster had killed, due to Gwen's lack of procedure and common sense, before finally defeating it. Of course he simply said to much work to do, to express other wise might tip Jack off to his feelings about seeing the older man with Gwen. He couldn't help thinking bitterly how nice it must be for everyone to be able to forget all those victims that had died that night. Ianto didn't have that option, he had a certain fertility clinic to burn to the ground in order to provide a cover as to why the twelve victims were now nothing more than a pile of ash. Somehow he thought free cremation would be of little comfort to their loved ones.

* * *

><p>Over the next few weeks Jack and Gwen had been spending large amounts of time together, which was to be expected. Jack was training her after all. He used the same training techniques to teach Gwen that he had used on Ianto, to Ianto's dismay he never tried keeping it hidden. To further twist the knife Gwen's skill with the gun improved at a far faster rate than Ianto's. The one bonus to that was Gwen's lessons became obsolete quickly.<p>

It became common knowledge, Gwen wouldn't let you forget, she had a relationship and a life outside work. Jack told her to hold onto it and not to lose it. That however did not stop either of them from flirting with one another. Jack was so caught up in his new hire that him and Ianto hadn't so much as talked outside of, 'your coffee, sir' and other similar phrases. Ianto had become what he had planned to from the beginning. A shadow. He faded into the background and silently kept the Hub moving smoothly. The irony of the situation being that he had gotten what he initially wanted, but now missed the flirtations that he and Jack had once enjoyed.

Still it allowed him to focus on his original plans. He had contacted a cybernetics expert by the name of Dr. Tanizaki who agreed with great enthusiasm to come and investigate Lisa's unique condition. Soon he wouldn't need Jack, Lisa would be cured and they would leave Torchwood and get on with their lives.

To Ianto's amusement the person he was becoming closest to was of all people Suzie. They by no means considered each other friends, they simply had no one else to converse with. Lisa's condition had taken a turn for the worse and as a result her pain medication had to be increased to the point where she spent the vast majority of her time sleeping. So his one source of human interaction came during his meal times and dropping off Suzie's food. He even took to eating with in the same room with her. Jack never asked where Ianto took off to during their meals, didn't seem to take notice anymore.

Befriending the deranged woman probably wasn't doing Ianto much good. The seeds of jealously Ianto held over Gwen were being fed by Suzie's borderline hatred for her. Suzie was bitter by the quick replacement and to find out the team was functioning fine without her, so she took to verbally bashing the younger Welshwoman frequently, and the two of them nitpicked her every decision. Ianto wasn't really sure any more if she actually made that many blunders or if it was the two of them feeding off their distaste of being replaced by her. So he decided he'd do as he was taught by Torchwood One, keep an unbiased composition of statistics analysing case outcomes and correlating them to the statistics that the team held before her employment. Yes, it was not required and a little nerdy, but Ianto didn't like thinking he could be so petty as to dislike someone over _'stealing his man._' He'd let the numbers decide whether he was misjudging her based on his emotions or if the _'heart' _that she brought to the team caused more damage then it resolved. The only flaw in his little study was that it would take a least a year to see any fair correlation in his findings.

* * *

><p>"You spend an awful lot of time in here, you know," Suzie pointed out as she bit into her sandwich.<p>

"Did you want to be alone?" Ianto asked sounding nonchalant.

"No, its not that. Just Jack couldn't be to thrilled with our consorting with me so frequently."

"No, he probably wouldn't. But that would require him to notice."

"Ah, this is your little 'teenage rebellion,'" she taunted.

"I suppose, don't know if those are the words I'd use."

"So what mission are they working on now?"

"Last I saw, Tosh was guiding the others on tracking some strange alien signal she had picked up. I've been fixing up the archives all day, so I haven't been updated on their progress . Just know they were all out when I came up to order lunch."

"Wonder what sort of tech it is," Suzie said as the sound of the cog alarm was heard, signalling the return of the team.

"I better go see if they need anything," Ianto said as he gathered up the rubbish from their meal and left the room, locking the door behind him.

* * *

><p>"Owen, let it go," Jack ordered as the team filed in.<p>

"Jack he raped and murdered that poor girl, we cant just let him get away with it!" Owen shouted in response.

"He already did. "_I saw the event through alien tech and know he did it_" wouldn't hold up in court, you know this."

Ianto walked in on the team in the middle of the heated debate, what about he wasn't sure. He knew Owen was livid and Jack was getting upset with Owen's disregard for his authority.

"Jack, I need to talk with you," Gwen piped in, interrupting the debate. "In private."

"My office," Jack responded more than happy about ending his 'conversation' with Owen. "Owen, let it go. Ianto, coffee and order dinner please, its gonna be a long day."

Before Ianto had a chance to point out the sandwiches he had already picked up Jack was gone into the confines of his office. He went about handing Owen and Tosh their meals and then proceeded to make the coffees. The drinks were almost ready when Jack's office door swung open with an intensity he was sure the door did not appreciate and a irate Gwen storming off.

"Gwen, I'm telling you let it go," Jack ordered after the Welshwoman.

"Someone is going to die and you want me to simply do nothing?" Gwen retorted. Someone was going to be hurt, she couldn't just stand by and do nothing it wasn't in her nature.

"Gwen, you can't predict a definite future. Getting involved could be what sets that future in motion."

"I cant just do nothing, Jack. He's just a boy, he needs our help!" Gwen shouted as she exited through the Cog wheel.

Jack took a few calming breaths before joining Ianto at the coffee machine preying his much needed fix was almost ready.

"What is it with my team and insubordination?" Jack asked Ianto as he entered the kitchenette.

"Perhaps they worked out the only way to get your attention is through either shouting or talking in sexual overtures, sir," Ianto replied sarcastically, smiling as he noticed his joke seemed to have lightened Jack's mood.

"You don't seem to be shouting, does this mean you'll be gracing me with sexual overtures?" Jack grinned.

"Oh not at all, sir. I'm the exception to the rule. I am the only source of coffee after all," Ianto said cheekily as he handed Jack his coffee and sandwich as he left the room.

* * *

><p>A few hours later the team returned after from attempting to intervene when the accused rapist Ed Morgan made an attempt on the boy Berdie's life. As a result Gwen ended up with the knife Ed had brought with him to do the deed. Everything seemed fine until Ed Morgan charged Gwen and before anyone knew what was happening the elderly man was lying dead in the street with a traumatized Gwen covered in his blood.<p>

The Ghost Machine device was filed in the secure archives and Jack sent everyone home early while he remained to take care of Gwen. Ianto had felt sorry for Gwen, taking another living things life for the first time must be difficult to deal with. Ianto was in no rush to find out. Still, he couldn't help that ever so slight feeling that crept inside when he watched Jack comfort Gwen as he exited the Hub. He quickly shook the thought from his mind, it didn't matter anymore. In three days Dr Tanizaki would be here and Lisa would be cured and they'd be free of Torchwood and all the pain accompanied by it.


	10. Roommates

AN: Just a heads up I've now finished editing the previous chapters, hopefully I caught all my mistakes, and there are only two major changes to take note of. First is I decided Jack and Ianto have not progressed to sexual relations yet so both chapters 5/6 have been edited to reflect that. Instead Jack accidently voices his mind effectively putting the breaks on their relationship for now. Biggest change was I shuffled everything down a chapter, so the original Prologue is now chapter 1 and this chapter, which was 8 is now chapter 9. I did this to insert a new prologue that will hopefully get people excited for things to come. So while you don't need to reread the whole story I strongly recommend reading the new prologue.

AN2: For anyone enjoying this story, sorry I have trouble focusing on one project at a time, but don't worry I haven't abandoned this or my other projects. But since I now have five+ projects (several TW stories I'm writing not sure if I'll post or not) in the works I'll try and focus on the more popular ones first. So if you're liking a certain story make sure to review or put on alert and I'll try focusing on the more popular ones first.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 9 - Roommates<strong>

Ianto lay in his bed. How long he lay there he wasn't sure. Seconds, hours, days? Time was merging into a blur for him. His hands were covered in dry blood. Lisa's blood. His world had been broken and Ianto couldn't imagine a way things could have turned out more horrid than they had. Lisa, the love of his life murdering two innocent people and then shot to death by his team mates, by Jack's order no less. The one that meant everything, dead. Murdered by the orders of the one he would seek comfort from.

"_Resisting the urge to shoot." _Jack's words rang throughout Ianto's mind as he remembered the feel of cold steel pressed against his head. Jack had wanted to kill him, it was a surreal moment. He was less inclined to kill Suzie the night he found out about her murder spree. Ianto wished he had. Lisa was gone, there was no point any more. He wanted it done, life to be done. To much of a coward to go through with it himself, he hoped Jack had done it.

Right after Lisa's first victim Ianto's dream had been crushed. Oh, he still clung to it, but he now knew. Deep in the back of his mind he always suspected his Lisa was gone, but after Dr Tanizki's death, he knew. It was why he tried so hard to provoke Jack, he couldn't let go. So he turned to Jack, Jack who did what needed to be done no matter how painful and still managed to carry on. It was why he respected the man so much. _"You're worse than anything locked up down there." _He never meant it, but he knew how to push Jack's buttons. _"You're the biggest monster of all."_ He knew Jack had a dark side he wasn't proud of, that he would do what was right and what was needed no matter the cost. What Ianto couldn't understand was if that was the case, why was he still alive?

He had lied and betrayed Jack from the start and after everything came to light he fought Jack at every turn. Taunted him, threatened to shoot anyone who got in his way, threatened Jack's team. Defied him when Jack ordered him to kill Lisa. Ianto was sure anyone who had ever dared to so much as think of crossing Jack in such away would not live to tell about. The only reason that came to mind was, he simply must not know Jack as well as he thought. Surely Jack would be back to finish the job, at least he was still hoping. A world without Lisa and all they dared dream together was not one Ianto wanted any part of.

So he would lay in his bed and wait for Jack to finish it.

* * *

><p>Jack was pissed. No, what Jack was the English language had not yet invented a word to express the emotions he was feeling. Not once in Jack's abnormally long life had someone fooled him so completely. He was a former Time Agent and a conman, and damn good at both. The naïve inexperienced youth, was one of the oldest tricks and he had fallen for it. He had underestimated Ianto at every turn.<p>

What bothered Jack the most wasn't that he was conned but the way Ianto had done so. Jack always played his feelings close to the heart, he never tried so hard to show interest in someone before. He had trusted Ianto and that betrayal had made it incredibly hard to not pull the trigger.

Despite everything Jack couldn't help but be thoroughly impressed with Ianto, never had he miss judged and underestimated one to this degree. Somehow the young man survived Canary Wharf and managed to drag his partly converted girlfriend and an entire conversion unit out of Torchwood Tower without being noticed. Then he learned how to not only hook up the unit, technology far more advanced then anything on Earth today, and treat her wounds. Then to sneak her into the base unnoticed for half a year. But what impressed Jack most was how selflessly he had loved the woman, he was incredibly naïve and loyal to a fault, but he couldn't fault his resolve. To risk his life by concealing a planetary threat and dedicate himself to a remote possibility of her recovery.

He blamed himself. Not himself, himself. But his future self. _"Don't take him for granted."_ What was his future self thinking? The time of his reunion with his Doctor was coming close, Jack was avoiding relationships for that reason. And yet the message clearly implied that he and Ianto were to grow close, the equivalent of I love you as far as Jack was concerned. So Jack pulled away and did his best to ignore the young man, which had been incredibly hard. Never had he seen a man wear a suit quite so well. Still if his future self never left that message he wouldn't have been avoiding Ianto, had had a lot more sex these past months he was sure, and would've discovered his secret. At least he would like to think that he would've.

And to make matters worse Jack was now realizing just how much Ianto had been doing around the Hub. It had only been three days and everything was complete chaos.

* * *

><p>"Alright, Tosh you guide us from the Hub, Owen and Gwen lets go catch that Weevil," Jack ordered.<p>

"Kits aren't stocked," Owen informed Jack as he inspected his kit.

"Why the hell aren't they stocked? Basic stuff people. Gwen, that should be your responsibility when you took over for Suzie," Jack informed her.

"Never had to do it before," Gwen protested.

"Whose been keeping them stocked?" Jack asked while inwardly already knowing the answer.

"Ianto," Tosh replied.

"For fucks…" Just cut himself off as he squeezed the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb in frustration, attempting to control his temper. For three days numerous tasks had been overlooked, everyone assuming one of the others had taken care of it. They needed to get things under control or peoples safety would be at risk, he shuddered to think what might have happened if Owen hadn't noticed the half empty kits beforehand. He couldn't help thinking how great a cup of Ianto's coffee would help this day feel that much better, but no. Three days of instant just wasn't cutting it anymore. It was like a cocaine addict trying to go from coke to marijuana, it just wouldn't kick the need. And then there were meals. In three days they've eaten only once per day, normally fairly late into the day because they had simply forgot.

The Hub was reverting to the mess it had been before Ianto came along and now Jack had no clean shirts. It had taken them almost 48 hours to realize the reason the Weevil's in the vaults were screaming because no one had been feeding them. They had even forgot about Suzie, it took Jack over a hour just to remember where Ianto had put the woman.

They were a man down, only one. It wasn't like they'd never been so before. They had always managed to handle things without incident, but now? If they didn't get organized fast, someone was going to get hurt.

* * *

><p>Day three into Ianto's suspension was finally coming to a end. Tasks had been reassigned and team moral was at an all time low. They had taken for granted how the tedious jobs they had hated so much were taken care of and were now once again thrust upon them.<p>

Jack was tired and ready for bed, for once in his long life he felt he needed a full nights sleep. But he had a nagging thought which lingered in his mind that needed to be sated before he'd be able to even hope to sleep. Ianto had loved that woman, Jack still couldn't call her by name, it made her real. But he had loved her fiercely enough to risk it all and Jack was curious how that had felt, how the young man had felt during his entire time working at Torchwood 3. And it just so happened they had recently uncovered a piece of alien tech that can read strong emotions that lingered in a room.

So here Jack stood, in the room where Lisa was hidden away for months, the room where she had died, and he was holding the ghost machine in hand.

Jack walked into the center of the room and pushed the button to activate the device.

_Around him a ghost image of Ianto sitting peacefully talking to Lisa. He was smiling, Jack couldn't remember ever seeing Ianto smile like that before, he couldn't help but think it looked good on him. He and Lisa were talking, reminiscing about their past, both looking content, happy even. But then why was Jack feeling like this?_

_He was feeling scared, terrified even. It didn't make sense, neither were showing any outward signs of fear. But Jack felt terror. Not the kind one would feel for themselves, but the kind that creeps in when you're fearing for someone you loves safety. Such deep concern and love mixed together saturated with a deep fear. The feelings were coming from Lisa._

_And then Jack realized to true horror of the Cybermen. Once converted you stay that way but on some level consciousness you must still be aware of what's going on around you. Because Lisa was terrified of what she might do to Ianto._

Jack released the button and immediately keeled over falling to his knees. He was sweating and feeling immensely guilty now. He still knew he made the right decision but knowing a part of her was still aware on some level of what was going on made it real. Her real. The one saving grace was that given by the emotions Jack had picked up on, she would have been happy that she had been prevented from harming him.

Jack stumbled to his feet and made his way back to his office. As much as he was still curious to feel Ianto's feelings he didn't want to risk jumping in on Lisa's again. It was to much. So he decided to invade the young mans privacy another way, the cameras and the CCTV they had set up three days prior.

* * *

><p>Jack sat down heavily into his office chair reflecting on that night three days past when he had dropped off Ianto at his flat.<p>

"_I want cameras giving me eyes of every corner of this flat," Jack ordered his team as he all but kicked open the door, shoving a muddled Ianto through._

_The team shuffled into the apartment and without a word went straight to following Jack's orders, while Jack himself dragged Ianto into his bedroom and threw the young man onto the bed._

"_Four week suspension," Jack yelled. "Four weeks and I expect you back at work. No more lies, no more secrets. Five lives you endangered. Two lives you got killed. Seven years, that's what you owe me. You have four weeks to pull yourself together and I swear if I have to come back here and look at you before then you will regret it. You will take care of yourself, you will not touch the cameras and you will not harm yourself." Jack ordered as he and the team left Ianto alone to his solitude ._

He had been pretty harsh treating of the young man, but he didn't regret it. Ianto had screwed up and with only a four week suspension he had gotten off easy.

He pulled up the camera displaying Ianto's bedroom and Jack couldn't believe what he was seeing. Ianto still lay on the bed in the same suit he wore the night of the incident. Zooming in revealed the dry blood still clung to his hands too. He hadn't moved since three days prior, not to eat, drink and by the looks of it not even to use the bathroom.

Jack had given the man one task to carry out while on his suspension, take care of himself. Now he'd have to pay Ianto's flat a visit, possibly make routine checkups. Checkups he really didn't want to have to deal with, he needed time to cool off from everything between them and he wouldn't get that if he needed to baby sit.

Luckily for Jack, he had a plan already formulating on how to deal with the situation. One that would solve two problems in one go.

* * *

><p>"Get up," Jack ordered as he entered Suzie's prison cell.<p>

"Huh?" Suzie mumbled in a sleepy daze.

"You're coming with me, pack whatever you need and lets go," Jack said as he tossed her a large suitcase.

"Where are we going?"

"I'll explain as we go."

Suzie quickly packed her bag and followed Jack out of the Hub out towards the SUV. Jack popped open the boot, where they would store Weevil's and said to Suzie, "Get in."

"You're joking," the woman replied flatly.

"Not at all, I don't trust you and I'm not taking any chances."

Reluctantly Suzie climbed in and Jack tossed her suitcase in the backseat and jumped in the drivers and pulled off. While they were on route Jack explained to her the events that had transpired and why Ianto stopped bringing her food suddenly.

"So let me get this right. I am to baby sit a fully grown man for a month?" She asked quizzically.

"Correct."

"What makes you think I wont just run away?"

"I don't. But you know that I will find you and there will be no second chances if I have to come looking," Jack said rather bluntly. "Here is the deal, you keep him alive for four weeks and I will bring you back on probation. Very strict probation. No weapons access and extremely limited computer access. And you will no longer be confined to your cell."

"You'd seriously give me another shot, after everything I did?" She asked not quite believing him. It sounded to good to be true.

"I'm a firm believer that people can change, but be warned even the slightest slip up and there will be no second chances. No Retcon, no cell, just a bullet."

"And what if I decide…" she started saying before being abruptly cut off.

"You decide nothing. This is what is happening. You will take care of Ianto for four weeks and then return to work with him."

"I see."

"I'll be back shortly," Jack said as he exited the SUV and ran into a 24 hour Tesco to pick up some supplies. Within half hour he returned with a couple of bags of groceries and tossed them inside the backseat before speeding off towards Ianto's flat.

There was no more conversation held between them until Jack pulled up to Ianto's. He let Suzie out the back and the two unloaded the SUV and made their way up. Using the spare key, which all members were required to provide Torchwood with, Jack entered Ianto's flat and told Suzie to heat up some soup while he took care of Ianto.

Jack stormed into Ianto's bedroom and grabbed Ianto by the scruff of his suit collar and yanked him right up onto his feet as he shouted, "Get up."

Ianto didn't reply he was to stunned by the sudden appearance of Jack.

"I told you to take care of yourself," Jack scolded as he dragged Ianto into the bathroom. "I warned you I wouldn't be happy if you made me come back here." Jack continued as he started pulling the suit jacket and tie off the younger man and tossed them to the floor.

"Jack, what the fuck," Ianto managed to get out, his senses finally catching up with him.

"Yes, what the fuck indeed," he retorted only half listening to the protests Ianto was now making. He simply ripped open Ianto's dress shirt causing buttons to scatter in all directions. In a quick motion he had Ianto's belt unfastened, trousers undone and was yanking them down boxers and all. He gave Ianto a quick push causing him to land on the toilet seat while he finished removing the cloths and socks. He then turned on the shower, making sure it was set as cold as it possibly could before forcing Ianto into it.

"Oh shit," Ianto squealed as the freezing water hit him full on.

"I strongly suggest you take over from here. You don't want me scrubbing that blood off," he threatened as he exited the bathroom. "Ten minutes and you better be done. There is a pair of pyjamas on the side for you."

Ianto finished his shower and dressed in the pyjamas Jack had provided him. He quickly exited and made straight for his bedroom and was surprised to find his sheets already changed and ready for him.

"Hop in and eat this," Jack said as he entered the room behind Ianto. He waited for Ianto to slip into his sheets and passed him the bowl of soup.

Ianto didn't reply, simply took it as an order and started nipping away at the meal.

"I'm going to talk and you are going to listen," Jack began as Ianto looked up to face him. "Suzie is officially now your guardian," Jack said while he raised his hand to cut off Ianto's protest. "She will remain here for the remained for your suspension and her livelihood is dependant on you taking care of yourself. You hold both your fates in your hands."

Ianto wanted nothing more than to complain. As little as he and Suzie meant to one another, Jack knew he wouldn't put someone else's wellbeing in jeopardy, even if he was sure it was a bluff on Jack's part. Ianto wouldn't risk it, Jack already had proven to be more unpredictable than Ianto had thought.

"I noticed your second bedroom is empty, I'll stop by later with a bed for her, until then she's on the couch. After I'll see you once you return from your suspension."

Jack turned and was about to leave before he stopped and said one last thing to Ianto, "Ianto, take care of yourself," Jack whispered conveying far more of his emotions than he wanted to, so he added, "remember you're property of Torchwood for the next seven years, so that's an order."

And with that Jack was gone and Ianto couldn't help but curse that little part of him that got a little turned on by being Torchwood property, which Jack now was in charge of. He quickly flipped over and buried his head in his pillow wanting nothing more than to scream the thought from his head, but held back as he now had company lurking in the next room. Instead he lay there waiting for the darkness of sleep to take him.

* * *

><p>Suzie sat on the couch in the early hours of the morning reflecting on the past few days. For two of them she had been locked in her room and for two days no one had come to bring her food. It did make her grateful for the attached bathroom. At least she had a ready water supply available. She was starting to worry that finally an unbeatable threat had taken out her team, though that wouldn't explain Jack's absence. Apparently Jack could not die, she had seen it with her own eyes. It happened so very fast and as time passed she was starting to believe she had seen wrong. Surely an undying human was far to fanciful even for Torchwood. Still, she had seen it and that made the possibility of escape incredibly low, a lifetime on the run from Jack would not be a pleasant one.<p>

Not that she planned on escaping. She was extremely grateful for a chance to get back to work and she'd take it. But Suzie was a very cautious person, always planning backup plans in case of the worse scenario ever came to fruition. Jack's potential inability to die really put a damper on any plans she might have played around with forming.

The tech bound to her leg was easily enough to detach. She had been familiar with it, she was the one to originally analyze the device before Jack had brought in Toshiko. The fact that Tosh didn't seem to think it within Suzie's capability to deactivate the device was insulting. Amusingly enough if Tosh had just been to distracted that day to put the extra security measures in place, the second-in-command in her wanted to scold the oversight. But it didn't matter, Suzie was Torchwood. She would take care of Ianto as ordered, whether he liked it or not, and start reclaiming her place and prove she was far better than bloody Gwen Cooper.

She was so deep in thought that she almost missed a boy standing in her peripheral in Ianto's bedroom doorway. She turned to face the boy only to realize to her bewilderment it was not a boy at all. Ianto stood sleepily in the pair of blue and white vertically stripped pyjamas that Jack had supplied him the night before. He let out a large jaw stretching yawn while rubbing the sleep out of his eye with the back of his hand. And then it hit her.

It hit her like a brick to the face. Ianto Jones was incredibly young. She always knew he was the youngest member of the team, by almost a full ten years. Somehow though he masked his age well, hidden behind those suits of his and that silent grace he always carried himself with. Never complained and in all honesty Suzie had always thought him the most mature of the group.

Which is why the image of Ianto that stood before her was so foreign. So, private. This was a side of Ianto no one she suspected, not even Jack, no especially not Jack, had seen. This Ianto looked fragile and some part of her just wanted to protect him from the world. She'd never voice it, probably even treat him worse because she didn't especially like finding out she had some hidden motherly or elder sister instinct. Suddenly she didn't mind the job anymore. Yes it was a means to her ends, but from everything Jack had told her the day before about what had happened, Ianto needed someone right now. And to her surprise she was glad it was her.

"Sit your arse down and I'll make breakfast," Suzie ordered in a tone that dared he try and do anything but obey. She snickered inwardly when the look of defiance etched into the young mans face, but in the end he obeyed without a word.

She may have this new instinct to want to protect Ianto, but that didn't mean he was going to enjoy it. She did have a reputation for being a bitch to maintain after all.


End file.
